God & Spiritual Health: When Stillness is Not Optional

We made it through New Year’s Day, and that part was relatively easy. Most people were off work, able to ease into the day and linger a little longer in rest.

Today feels different.

After more than a week of activity—gatherings, meals, shopping, conversations, obligations—the exhaustion hits. Or maybe there’s a sense of relief that it’s over and life can return to normal.

But what is normal?

For many of us, normal looks like long commutes in cold, possibly snowy weather. Eight or more hours of work filled with clients, colleagues, meetings, and far too many emails. And that’s just the workday. There are still family responsibilities—caring for a spouse and children, maybe parents or in-laws, helping extended family, stopping at the grocery store, doing laundry, managing homework. The list never really ends.

At the start of a new year, many people resolve to get physically healthy, especially after weeks of holiday eating. But far fewer pause to consider their spiritual health and overall wellbeing.

Spiritual health is an exploration of our inner life—how our relationship with God shapes our peace, resilience, identity, and wholeness. It is the intentional choice to quiet the noise so we can be present to speak with the Lord and, just as importantly, hear from Him.

Foundationally, spiritual health teaches us to pause before planning—to let God speak before we move.

Since August, God has been slowing me down for my own wellbeing. I had become the go-to person everywhere—at work, at home, for everyone’s needs and problems. I was used to not sleeping well, not eating properly, and running on fumes. Eventually, that kind of living becomes your normal.

But that kind of “normal” can kill you.

It struck me that everywhere I turned—social media, text messages, even the prayers people sent me—I kept encountering the same words: “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10a)

I didn’t choose the stillness. Life stopped suddenly and without my permission. It was humbling to have everything come to a halt all at once.

At first, I had to learn how to be still. I was forced to rest. And after what would normally feel like a vacation length of time, something changed in what I could hear. The quiet of the house. The soft click just before the air conditioner turned on. The difference between the sound of a car and a truck passing by. A train in the distance. The mail being placed in the mailbox.

Weeks later, I could hear the silence itself—and I began to crave it. In the silence, I was finally open. I could hear from the Lord. I noticed my breathing. I could feel beneath the constant, familiar body pains.

That was when the shift occurred.

God interrupted my ordinary plans to show me what not paying attention to Him—and to my body—had almost cost me: everything.

I’ve since learned what I now call the spiritual discipline of doing nothing. It isn’t laziness. It’s obedience. When life becomes too much, I have to intentionally stop, find silence, and reconnect with God by returning to those same words: Be still and know.

During my healing, I even had to relearn how to breathe so I could speak at a steady cadence. That verse became the rhythm for my breathing—slow enough to draw in oxygen for a full sentence. Along the way, I noticed how oxygen energized me, how it moved through my body, how it restored what had been depleted.

Spiritual health and wellbeing do not intersect in the absence of sound, but in the presence of God.

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A Moment of Stillness

Before you move on, pause here.

Take one slow breath in.
And a longer breath out.

If you’re able, whisper this prayer:

Lord, help me be still.
Help me know You are God.
Meet me here.

You don’t have to fix anything right now.
You don’t have to plan what’s next.

Just be present.

Stillness is not empty.
It is full of God.

Leona