Just because something is simple doesn’t mean that it’s easy to do. Take, for example, one line from a psalm: “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)
This song is filled with remembering all that God has done and is capable of doing, and basically tells us to trust God and to relax. Too much of human life is charged with a kind of desperate energy. We think, if I don’t do this everything is going to fall apart, as if all depends on us. “Be still” implies an invitation and command to stop trying so hard, to stop struggling to make things happen. Or as the wisdom from the East would put it, “Don’t push the river!” (It flows quite well on it’s own.) As long as we are wrestling with what life throws at us, it’s very difficult for God to get our complete attention. And it’s a call not only to cease our ceaseless busyness, but to still all the noise within.
God is not demanding passivity of us. We are responsible to and for whomever and whatever constitutes our days. God asks us to adjust our perspective away from self-focus to God-focus. We can only do this when we stop and quiet ourselves.
Ironically, quieting ourselves takes work. It sounds like it would be effortless, but, the harder we try to make something happen (especially interiorly) the less likely it is to come about. Just to be open, peaceful, free of fears and aware of God’s loving presence requires that we learn to put to the side for a while the myriad concerns and curiosities that normally preoccupy us. A routine, followed daily, of simply being present in the moment helps immensely.
For a few minutes we make God the center of our attention, remembering all God’s blessings, remembering how absolutely God loves us and that God is with us here and now. We breathe in peace and breathe out any and all disturbing distractions.
It is only when we come to stillness in this way that we can know (in the biblical sense of experience) that God is truly faithful, reliable and deeply caring of all.
“Be still and know that I am God” can become our spiritual path.
Jana Buckley says:
Peace – this word alone is difficult. We would like to give it to others and carry it within ourselves.