Coaching that helps responsible adults live and lead whole.
Embrace the Stillness
Ronald S. Cava
2/16/20263 min read
Busy But Restless
Our recent winter weather—those cold days that keep us inside—has only heightened this awareness. You’d think forced slowing would bring rest. Instead, many of us spend surprising amounts of energy trying to fill the space. Even when life presses pause, we grow uneasy with stillness, quick to reach for something—anything—to do.
That restlessness reveals something about us.
We have learned to equate worth with activity. When life slows enough to leave us alone with our thoughts, deeper questions surface:
Am I living the life I meant to live?
Who am I when I’m not producing, achieving, or staying busy?
These questions are not new.
Long before crowded calendars and glowing screens, people of faith wrestled with the same unease. Scripture is surprisingly honest about our discomfort with stillness—and equally clear about where it can lead.
Follow the Stillness — Psalm 46:10
“Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
This is not a command to stop living. It is an invitation to remember who we are—and who holds our lives.
Stillness is not emptiness. It is the space where identity is clarified, where worth is received rather than earned, and where life is measured by faithfulness rather than speed.
Embrace the Silence — 1 Kings 19:11–13
The prophet Elijah, exhausted and frightened, hides in a cave after fleeing for his life. He assumes that if God speaks, it will be dramatic—a fierce wind, an earthquake, or fire. But God is not found in any of those. Instead, Elijah hears what Scripture calls “a sound of sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:12).
His encounter is deeply human and timeless. Simon and Garfunkel famously called it “the sound of silence”—that paradoxical space where meaning emerges only when the noise fades.
The story does not deny the noise of the world. It simply refuses to confuse noise with truth. Elijah’s clarity comes not through more activity, but through stillness—a quiet spacious enough for discernment.
That ancient story feels uncomfortably current. We often expect insight to arrive with force—urgent, loud, unmistakable. Silence feels unproductive, even wasteful. Yet the biblical witness suggests that wisdom often arrives softly, when we finally stop running and start listening.
Lent — A Season for Stillness
In the Christian tradition, Lent begins on February 18. It is not a season for adding more, but for paying closer attention—for listening more deeply to God, to ourselves, and to one another.
Perhaps this year, Lent might offer an opportunity not to fill the quiet, but to trust it. To slow down just enough to hear what has been waiting beneath the noise.
If you choose to observe Lent, begin not with a grand commitment, but with five minutes of intentional quiet each day.
No phone.
No agenda.
Just space.
What surfaces?
What feels restless?
What feels alive?
You may discover that what once felt empty was actually waiting.
I’d be interested to hear: What makes stillness difficult for you? And what helps you practice it? Send me a message
As Lent approaches, I’ve been thinking about stillness, listening, and what gives our lives depth. This essay first appeared in The Daily Dispatch, our local Henderson newspaper. It feels especially timely to share it here as the season begins.
Have you ever noticed how the fuller life gets, the thinner it can feel? Our calendars are crowded, our phones are busy, and most days we move from one obligation to the next without much pause. From the outside, life looks productive and connected. Yet beneath all that motion, many people carry a quiet sense that something essential is missing.
This reflection is about stillness—not as withdrawal from life, but as the place where depth returns. As Lent approaches, it may be worth asking what quiet might teach us.
