If there isn’t a God, we better fret and worry and expend all our energy figuring out what to do. But if there is a God, perhaps the most important thing we can do is to stop and listen. In the “Upside Down Training” we do at Graffiti, we sometimes share this important community service principle: Don’t just do something–stand there. In times of stress, developing the habit of stopping and being attentive may actually be the most practical, and, well, active thing we can do.

In Isaiah, God makes a remarkable promise. “And when you turn, whether to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it'” (Isaiah 30:21). We are flooded with potential information to our cell phones, televisions, radios, and we have to make some choices. In the same way, perhaps it isn’t that God hasn’t sent out a signal. Maybe we just haven’t stopped to tune in properly.