Sit down. Listen to how the voice in your mind says, “Sit down,” as you read these examples.

You welcome into your living room a friend you have not seen in a long time. “Sit down.”

You are meeting with a banker to discuss a loan. He directs you to a chair. “Sit down.”

You have bad news to give a family member and ask them to meet you to talk. “Sit down.”

You have reached your limit with your child running in and out and around the house all day. “Sit down.”

Your colleague has asked to come to your office to get some advice. “Sit down.”

Sit: to rest with the body supported.    

Sitting implies resting after a job is complete.

Sitting while others stand can demonstrate a position of authority such as the Queen bears. Even Winston Churchill would not sit in her presence unless invited to do so.

Sitting implies familiarity. You feel at liberty to enter your home and sit anywhere you like. If you visit somewhere else, you must be invited to sit and are directed to a chair.

Sitting sometimes enables you to stop and think.

One proverb said: “Sometimes, simply by sitting, the soul collects wisdom.”

Tchaikovsky said: “Madam, you ask me how I compose. I compose sitting down.”

The Bible has many interesting references about sitting.

• God sits on His throne.

Isaiah 6:1. In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord seated on a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

• God knows our ordinary every day routines of  sitting and getting up.

Psalm 139:5. You know when I sit and when I rise and perceive my thoughts from afar. 

• Sitting is a good time to share teachable moments with your children.

Deuteronomy 11: 19. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

• Sitting can show a unwise acceptance of bad company.

Psalm 1: 1. Blessed is the man who does not walk in step with the wicked, or stand in the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers.  

• Sitting can signal the proper attitude for waiting on God.

Ruth 3:18  Then said [Naomi], Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest until he have finished the thing this day.

Sitting can be the prerequisite for conducting important business.

Ruth 4:1 Then went Boaz up to the gate, and sat him down there: and behold, the kinsman of whom Boaz spake came by; unto whom he said, Ho, such a one! Turn aside, sit down here. And he turned aside and sat down.

[These two references from Ruth refer to Naomi’s telling Ruth to wait on God as Boaz conducts the business which will give him rightful place as kinsman redeemer.]

• Sitting at the right hand of God is Jesus, who finished His work on the cross.

Hebrews 10: 12. But his man [Jesus] after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God.

Here is an excerpt from the classic work by Watchman Nee: Sit, Walk, Stand.

Ephesians 2:6. And raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.

God made him to sit and made us to sit with him. Christianity does not begin with walking; it begins with sitting. Most Christians make the mistake of trying to walk in order to be able to sit, but that is a reversal of the true order. Ephesians opens with the statement that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. [Ephesians 1:3] and we are invited at the very outset to sit down and enjoy what God has done for us; not to set out to try and attain it for ourselves.

What does it really mean to sit down? When we walk or stand we bear on our legs all the weight of our own body, but when we sit down our entire weight rests upon the chair on which we sit. We grow weary when we walk or stand, but we feel rested when we have sat a while. So also in the spiritual realm, to sit down is simply to rest our whole weight—our load, ourselves, our future, everything—upon the Lord. We let him bear the responsibility and cease to carry it ourselves.

Today, dear reader: Sit down.