85 Benefits of Stillness With God – Be Still & Know God

Keith KettenringChristian Living, The Uncommon Journey

In stillness, God is known. The Shepherd guides us to still waters that we might experience stillness and become still. Yet, almost everything in our culture, our Christianity, and our own habits convince us of our need for activity. Our lives are like a jar of water with sand in it. When agitated the water turns cloudy. But, when the jar sits still for a while the sediment settles and the water is clear. My journey includes many invitations to be still – first in physical struggles then in personal choices. From my own experience, I’ve discovered many benefits of stillness with God. These are listed to encourage you to be still with God.

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Benefits of regular stillness with God

  1. Aligns your inner life with God
  2. Allows you to experience the energy/work of God
  3. Keeps you from trying to be as God
  4. Allows you to enjoy God’s presence
  5. Prevents you from making God in your own image
  6. Opens your heart to receive God’s love, light, and life
  7. Gives room for spiritual healing
  8. Provides opportunity for repentance
  9. Gives place for cleansing and forgiveness
  10. Enables emotional stability
  11. Helps you attend to God
  12. Opens your heart to God’s peace and comfort
  13. Helps you to learn obedience
  14. Helps you become aware of God’s presence everywhere
  15. Teaches you to trust
  16. Increases your capacity to give thanks
  17. Provides a haven of rest for the storm-tossed
  18. Bolsters your confidence in God
  19. Allows God’s glory to manifest itself
  20. Brings unity to your heart and mind
  21. Defeats the enemy of your soul
  22. Reveals the way in which you should walk
  23. Deepens your relationship with God
  24. Transforms your heart
  25. Allows God to correct your thoughts and purify your ideas
  26. Provides a foundation for a peaceful life
  27. Defeats anxiety and fear
  28. Opens your heart to God’s love
  29. Prevents you from running ahead of God
  30. Brings proper perspective to life
  31. Helps you see the good in submission
  32. Enlivens your spirit
  33. Teaches you humility
  34. Allows you to know God
  35. Gives opportunity to love God with your whole heart, mind, soul, and body
  36. Satisfies yet deepens your longing for the infinite and eternal
  37. Gives you hope
  38. Helps you become like Jesus
  39. Provides a safe place for your shame
  40. Allows you to face your sin in an environment of love
  41. Helps focus your heart and mind on heavenly things
  42. Teaches you to acknowledge God in all things
  43. Allows you to find clarity of purpose
  44. Diminishes your capacity to be agitated
  45. Increases your capacity for God’s life and love
  46. Teaches you to die to yourself
  47. Brings healing to your soul and body
  48. Opens your heart to God’s mercy
  49. You begin to see yourself for who you really are
  50. You hear the beautiful sound of your own heart
  51. You enter God’s rest
  52. You begin to experience wholeness
  53. You begin to live in the life of God vs. your own life
  54. You are enabled to battle your own negative passions
  55. You find the courage to face opposition
  56. You discover wisdom to navigate difficult waters
  57. Your burdens are lifted
  58. You begin to experience union with the Trinity
  59. Real joy enters your heart
  60. You drink from God’s fountain of mercy
  61. You hover in the abyss of God’s goodness
  62. The light of God’s countenance shines in you
  63. You find strength in your weariness
  64. You learn to surrender your will to God’s will
  65. You learn to relax
  66. Your inner being is refreshed and renewed
  67. You begin to learn to live from the heart and not just the emotions or intellect
  68. Your life begins to simplify
  69. You actually seek first the kingdom of God
  70. Your heart and mind learn to be quiet
  71. You are able to sit at the table with the Trinity
  72. You experience being seated in heavenly places
  73. You begin to be filled with all the fullness of God
  74. You learn the value of silence
  75. You begin to embrace all that God has given you
  76. You enter communion with God
  77. You begin to release your need to control
  78. You learn to let go of your attachments
  79. You learn the value of relationship
  80. You begin to experience prayer from the heart
  81. Your understanding of time is re-oriented
  82. The Beatitudes start to become real to you
  83. What is “normal” to you is redefined
  84. Stress is reduced
  85. You learn to center your thoughts and life on God

Make note of, write down or print and circle the benefits that you most long for. Let them motivate you to make time to be still with God this week.

Many of these benefits come only through ongoing experiences of stillness with God. They are not instantaneous results of stillness. You may need to struggle with stillness initially. Yet, in the struggles come the benefits. More “how-to” in the next post.

What was your heart sensing as you read this list of benefits? How will you be still with God in the next few days? Share below.

Dr. K