Do you know what hammocks are for?

When I was a kid, we had a hammock down by the woods. The neighborhood kids would take turns trying to swing each other all the way around. My mom would call down from the house, “If you keep doing that, somebody’s gonna get hurt!” But everyone knows that mothers are limited by their misunderstanding of mortality. We children were enlightened. We were invincible. We’d lay down in the hammock and hold the sides closed, cocooned in our hemp rope space capsule, and take off . We didn’t want to swing; we wanted to fl y! We wanted to go around the world!

Finally, one day, one of our hammock-ronauts saw his dreams fulfilled. Four of us were pushing Billy with grim determination, and the boosters fired. Both ropes broke at once with a crisp snap, and Billy was flicked like a rubber band into the woods and swallowed up by a wall of Missouri jungle. History was made. Pants were split with laughter. But Billy wasn’t laughing. He was hurt!

Many of us have misused our hammock time with similar results. No one is invincible. If you don’t use your hammock to do what it was created to do, you will eventually get hurt.Hammocks are not for activity; they’re for inactivity.

The musical term used in Psalms for inactivity is selah. Most scholars agree that selah means “to pause.” Why would you want to pause right in the middle of a song? Because no one can really appreciate the beauty and power of a big ending without first experiencing a pregnant stillness. Without the pause, or still moment, a song would just be a monotonous cacophony.

Maybe you can relate. For many of us, our daily lives have become like songs without a selah. And the cacophony is killing us. There is always something on TV, on the radio, on our iPods or the Internet. There’s always something to do at the office, in the kitchen, in the yard, at school or at church. The voices of our lives are so loud and insistent, we become deaf to the still,small voice of God. From alarm clock to lights out, there is no pause, no stillness.

It can feel like being spun around the world in a hammock. At first the pace is exhilarating. The thrill is even addictive. But eventually all that spinning makes you dizzy. Finally the ropes fray,and someone gets hurt. I’ve done it, and everyone I loved got “flicked into the woods.”

Why do we let ourselves become overly busy?

We’re not saved by our own activity. Isaiah 30:15 says, “In repentance and rest is your salvation.”Jesus did all the work for us on the cross. All we have to do is repent and believe.

We don’t develop faith through our own activity. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” Only by being still do we learn to trust Him to be God rather than struggling to control our own lives.

In fact, there’s not a single aspect of our lives that is enhanced by busyness. It doesn’t strengthen our marriages. It doesn’t enhance our communities. It doesn’t protect our children. Busyness only devours our souls.

That is why God created mankind in a garden, not on a hamster wheel.

One of the best-loved passages in the Bible is Psalm 23. In it, I’ve found the antidote for a frantic, withered life. It begins, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul” (Psalm 23:1–3, NIV). The balm for my anxious, hurried heart lies in answering my Father’s invitation to be quiet, trust Him to be God and rest.

I have a feeling that God is waiting for you in a hammock somewhere. You won’t need a computer or a television. Don’t take a book or an iPod. Leave your work at the door. In fact, don’t bring anything with you that would compete with God for your attention — nothing that speaks louder than a whisper. You don’t have to be afraid of the quiet. Your Father is waiting for you there.

Is there any note in all the world as mighty as the grand pause? Is there any word in the Psalms more eloquent than the word “Selah,” meaning pause. … And is there anything that can touch our hearts like the power of stillness.
~ L.B. Cowman