"Be Still"

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

I remember in middle school the very first time I heard this verse. It was in a sermon that my youth pastor taught that Wednesday night and what I didn’t know at the time was the impact it would have on my life. I didn’t even know it a year after the sermon, or two years. Not until my life got “busy” did I recognize the value, or the importance in those two words: be still. I graduated high school and joined the military. In the span of 8 months I had graduated from two months of basic training, and completed a 6 month technical training school, where I learned my specialty in the Air Force. Crammed into those six months was an associate’s degree without the pre-requisites. Once I got to my first duty station, I completed my on the job training, and I immediately started taking college courses online towards a meteorology degree. I was working 9 hour night shifts 5 days a week, all while trying to uphold a 4.0 GPA in my two college classes, and trying to maintain my physical and mental health. As well as trying to get a decent amount of sleep at night, and taking the time to invest in the relationships I had locally and the ones that were 500-1,000 miles away. “Trying.” What ends up happening when we start to see our lives turn “busy,” whether we know it or not, is we begin to prioritize. “Well my school work is more important than working out, so today during lunch I am going to work on this assignment instead of going to the gym.” “I really need to get to bed so I can get at least 6 hours of sleep, so God can wait until tomorrow.” These were the thoughts running through my mind, these were my priorities at the time: work, school, sleep, and God. God was the very last on my list. He was not a priority and because of this, my life and decision making process took a toll. “Be Still.” What does that even mean? In our society, with all of the things that we have going on (school, work, social events, travel, sporting events, etc.), our days are scheduled out to the minute. We prioritize our time. We feel as though until we get this or that done, we will be stressed out. Or if we don’t get this done by today it will never get done, and it HAS to get done. But what would happen if we stopped it all? If we took a pause, broke our schedule and said, “God, I trust you. Lord, I’ve been so busy lately, and I can’t keep going anymore. I leave it all up to you. I need rest, and God, I chose to find rest in you.” And what if after we were done praying, we sat down, read our bible and were still. Still, meaning that we quieted our mind, pushed the thoughts of anxiety and busyness out of our minds. Our ears were turned to Our Father’s voice. One day I read the entirety of Psalm 46 with an open heart and ears wanting to hear. At first, I didn’t quite understand it. But the author of this psalm describes the MIGHTY POWER of Our God. It starts off with the realization and hope that The Lord is our safe place, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” That means during the times of busyness, the times of rushing and where we feel like we can’t catch up or where we are barely keeping our head above the water, HE is our refuge! The place where we can stop and be safe, and be strengthened. Though we see mountains falling into the sea, or we see all these things that we feel we can’t conquer, “God is within her, she will NOT fall!” The author goes on to describe something amazing that God is capable of doing: making wars cease. Just stop. Can you imagine? Overcoming the hate, the jealousy, the wrath and anger of the flesh and making it just stop. That is the power of God. It ends with suggesting the reader to be still. To reflect on the previous 9 verses. If God can do all of these things, just imagine what God can do in YOU. What he can do in ME. Ever since reflecting on this psalm for the very first time, it has been what I read and remind myself of when I’m stressed, when I have a task at hand that I feel like is way bigger than me. Like climbing a 100 foot tower. For some people that is the COOLEST thing ever, not me. I don’t even like roller coasters so the idea of being strapped to a tall tower that sways with the wind was horrifying to me. But for my job it is a necessity and it’s something that I must do. The day of the climb I wrote Psalm 46 on my wrist and every time my shaky arm reached up for the next ladder, or for the next climb, I saw that. I was reminded that God is my strength and my refuge, and that He will not let me fall (literally). My priorities changed and now my priority is God. I come home from work and instead of opening my school books or my computer to write my assignment, I open my bible. I read first. I put God first. And since then, everything has fallen in line. God has made a way and given me peace. This blog is meant to bring to light the wonderful and unlimited power of our loving God. I pray that every single person that reads these words would be able to hear the words of God and reflect on the almighty power of Him. When life is busy, when you feel like the world is taking a toll on you or you are drained and just wondering when you will finally catch a break, you are reminded of the safety of God’s arms and His love. He will take care of you, He will give you peace. God loves you more than anybody and more than our finite human minds can understand. If only we could take the time to be still, to open up our hearts and ears to listen.

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