Be still

If you’re like most Americans, you loved and hated the 2-word title of this post. I mean, most of us watch cheesy Christmas movies set in small towns with deep snow and cozy fires and think about how much we’d love that life. But most of us would hate the transition from the fast pace to the slower pace and a lot of us would still find something to distract us even in settings like those movies.

What is about stillness that causes us to struggle so much with it? I can only speak from personal experience, but it seems as if my thoughts get busier whenever I try not to be. In fact, my thoughts are often the loudest part of a quiet room and that makes me what to play some music, check a score, or scroll through my feed on a favorite social media platform. Stillness can be sooooo unsettling, but stillness isn’t the goal. Knowing that God is God is the goal, and if we stop short of that, stillness will never be something that we incorporate into our daily rhythms.

Psalm 46:10 shows us the what and the why of stillness: first, it’s something we do, and second, it’s something we know. Be still and know. Know what? That He is God. Can I take a little liberty with that verse and do my own little Amplified Bible thing with it?

Be still and know that He is God over all the things that silence reminds us of and that we are trying to distract ourselves from.

How does this play out practically? For me, as I was still this morning, I began to think of all the areas in my life that make me feel helpless – those areas at work and at home that overwhelm me because they are truly out of my control. If I stop there, I hate stillness because it reminds me that I am not enough. But we aren’t told to just be still or even to be still and know that we aren’t good enough. Since stillness hadn’t yet sought me to the place of recognizing that God is God, I invited Him in to all those places. “Lord, I invite You into that relationship. I invite You into that decision at work. I invite You into my helplessness.”

And just like that, I am reminded in the stillness that He is God over my weakness. That transaction is far more soul-soothing than anything else I might have used to try and fill the silence in order to distract myself from all the triggers that are all around me.

Be still and know that He is God.

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