Be Still

Psalms 46:10–“Be still, and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth!”

What does it mean to be still?

To sink down, drop, relax, abate, withdraw, refrain, to let go, let alone, to be quiet, to show oneself slack, cease.

To know—learn, to perceive and see, find out, discern, discriminate, distinguish, to know by experience, to recognize, admit, acknowledge, confess, consider, to be wise, to be revealed, 

Our natural minds fight this idea of being still.  We do not want to relax or let go of anything.  Before we can know, perceive and recognize God in our lives, He is calling us to be still.

Psalms 21:13—”Be exalted, O LORD, in your strength!  We will sing and praise your power.”

As we take some time to be still, turn towards Him, let go of whatever we might be carrying, and know He is our God, we are resting in His power.  1 Chronicles 29:11—”Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all.”

“Let go and let God,” a Christian mentor said to me many years ago.  She said this to because she was seeing just the opposite.  I was trying to be a good Christian but most of the time I was getting in front of God rather than being still.  

The link above is a song about being still, by Stephen Curtis Chapman.

“The instruction to be still in Hebrew means to let go, stop striving, slacken and let drop. 

It’s a picture of loosening our clenched grip on the circumstances and outcome and trusting God who’s sovereign over both.

I’m the first to admit that being still goes against my instinct. We are fixers.  We want to make it happen and just keep pushing through.

But the call to be still is a call to surrender.

It means giving up the myth of control to depend wholly on God.”  From lisaappello.com

Lord, lead us to a place of surrender each day that You may be exalted.