Orient your head and heart before acting with your hands

I have completed many ‘Wilderness First Aid’ training courses in my career.
During scenario after scenario, we would rehearse our approach to a scene or a patient. Upon arrival at the scene, the first aider pauses, or even takes a physical step backwards, and puts their gloves on. This purposeful pause is intended to give the first aider a moment to remember their training, to process what they are seeing, and to identify any dangers to themselves or to the patient.
The pause is not intended to delay care for the patient, but rather, to enhance the care. It is for the first aider to orient themselves to the scene, acquaint themselves with the patient’s condition, and recall their training.
As we consider being still this year so that we might witness God’s majesty, his provision and his protection, I invite you to consider the advice I received from my first aid trainers: pause, even momentarily, remember the grace and mercy extended to you by Jesus, recall your knowledge of God and his Word, and orient your head and heart before acting with your hands.
As you start a new day, as you guide and discipline your children, as you engage with colleagues at work, as you visit our beautiful school, consider pausing, even for a moment, and bringing your heart and mind to focus on our Creator and King, and on his wonderful provision.
If you know Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, you will know the benefits of pausing more frequently for more than just a moment and meditating on God’s Word. In his book “Knowing God”, Dr J. I. Packer helpfully describes the activity of meditation like this:
‘Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things one knows about the works, and ways and purposes and promises of God. It is an activity of holy thought, consciously performed in the presence of God, under the eye of God, by the help of God, as a means of communion with God.’
What a beautiful word picture of what it means to ‘be still and know that I am God’.
My prayer is that we might be intentional about our being still, and that as we do so we might “bring every element in our being, inside and out, into harmony with the will of God and the kingdom of God".
































