Week Three: Being vs Doing. January 15: Be Still and Know

Gregg’s Reflection

My first 50 years were about doing, striving to prove myself, seeking and failing to be ‘good enough.’ Moving into Being allowed freed up massive energy to bless others. Try it. 

My first 50 years were about doing. With a self-image of “not good enough,” I kept trying to earn my way into God’s favor. If I was not good enough, I had not done enough. I stayed so busy I couldn’t listen deeply, and my wounds never found any salve in achievement. My brother and I built three businesses employing over 300 people in 11 locations, but I was still “not good enough.”

Only when we sold the business could I be still long enough to value being over doing. Even then, my zeal to serve God was tangled up with proving myself worthy. God let me hit the wall again and again because God will not support the illusion that I can do this on my own. My structure was a self-salvation structure—trying to be the savior of my own life.

These days, Be still is the phrase I use to let go of thoughts during my 20-minute sit. I picture Merton’s image: thoughts like boats passing along the surface; when I find myself aboard, I drop off the stern and sink to the calm depths. I often begin contemplation repeating: Be still and know that I am God… Be still and know I AM… Be still and know… Be still… Be.

Silence and listening drew me into Being. In that silence, I meet God’s presence and slowly come to believe I am the Beloved. Now I remain grounded through silence, solitude, contemplation, meditation, spiritual reading, and journaling—and I mostly find peace instead of suffering from living at a distance from my depths.

Scripture

Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord… after the fire a sound of sheer silence. Then there came a still, small voice to him.

1 Kings 19:11–13

Be still, and know that I am God.

Psalm 46:10

Ancient Quotes

God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction. God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk.

Meister Eckhart

Our blessedness does not lie in our active doing, rather in our passive reception of God.

Meister Eckhart, Sermon 24

Modern Quotes

We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything, we are wasting our time. But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be. To be what? To be alive, to be peaceful, to be joyful, to be loving. And that is what the world needs most.

Thích Nhất Hạnh

We suffer because we are living at a distance from our depths—it’s as simple as that. The more our souls are infused with being, the better we feel and the better life seems to us, no matter what our outer circumstances are.

Sandra Maitri, Spiritual Dimensions of the Enneagram, p. 46

Journaling Prompts

• When was the last time you allowed yourself to be still before God?
  
  
• What thoughts or distractions surface when you try to be still?
  
  
• How could you create space today for stillness and deeper knowing?
  
  
• What places, spaces, and practices let you hear the still, small voice?

👉 Go deeper into this week’s theme:
Read the full Week 3 reflection: Being vs Doing