Be Still

Being still, that’s tough. We are called to do so, even though the winds pick up and the waves quicken. It’s easier to be still when the boat is still and floating on placid waters. I have a tendency to move my eyes from Him to the boat and the water, not keeping hold of the vision that He has for my life.

It’s been nine years since my wife and I moved to South Carolina on faith. We were weary and had been striving for a few years. But we began to understand that God had a plan for us that could not be realized where we were. On faith, we packed up our car, put most of our belongings in a storage facility, and drove from Colorado with our two kids (both of them under the age of five). We had no jobs and only had a place we could stay temporarily.

There are moments in life when we are called to be still and know that He is God. This was one of them. Through a series of events that were clearly God’s doing, we have come to a place of stability that is a long way from the rough seas we sailed on nine years ago.

Psalm 46:10 says to “be still and know that I am God.” In the NASB the verb “striving” is used. So here is the seeming contradictory part: being still doesn’t mean to stop moving or to stop working. It means to trust in Him and to do what He says, no matter how simple or foolish the strategy may seem.

A few years ago, God gave me a vision of what this looks like. In the vision, I was standing in a small cut out section of a cliff, chipping away at the rock with a hammer. The work was hard and the sun hot. After a while, I stopped and looked at what I had accomplished. It seemed okay, but not very much rock had been cleared. I was then moved away from the cliff and was given wider perspective. I then realized God had taken what I had done and multiplied it. Instead of just a few feet of rock being cleared, 20-30 yards of rock had been cleared.

Sometimes the work we are called to will be difficult and with our human eyes appear unfruitful. It is through His perspective, by being still and not striving, that He brings the increase.

Being still and not striving will look like weakness to the strong and foolishness to the wise (I Corinthians 1:25). At this moment in time and going forward, we are called to trust in Him. This is where our faith gets a workout. I’m certain that the move to South Carolina looked like foolishness to our family and friends. I would even agree that it was foolish. But this was done not in our strength, but out of our trust in Him.

This process of being still and ceasing to strive is part of our working out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). By God’s work on the cross through his Son Christ Jesus, we have been set free, and the process of being set free, of aligning ourselves to His vision of us, is the working out. We are coming into life from death, coming alive in our calling and our destiny.

So, brothers and sisters, be still and know that He is God. Trust in the process, especially when the path or strategy He gives for you to follow seems weak or foolish. Keep moving toward what He has called you to, but do so out of His strength. It is His good pleasure to fulfill His good purpose in you.