Be still, and know that I am God

Sometimes doing nothing and focusing your whole being on God's faithfulness and the trustworthiness of his promises is the most powerful and effective act that we could ever do. Isaiah 30:15 declares: “In rest and repose you will be saved; in quietness and trust it will be your strength ”. That is why we have to ask the Lord: "Father, give me discernment, to know when to act and when to wait, when to fight and when to lower our guard, when to speak and when to be silent." In the divine economy, there is time for everything, and each situation has its strategy.

Many times, the most powerful posture of a man or woman of God is stillness, rest. How many times agony and anguish drain us physically and emotionally. Many times I have said to the Lord, “Father, I do not want to live my ministerial life in agony and anguish. I want to work at rest, anchored in you, always renewing myself like the eagle, gaining new strength even in flight, renewing my vision while I live with confidence, to be able to continue the battle ”.

Many servants of God burn out in the course of their work for the Lord, and as the years go by, they grow weaker. I believe that the child of God must be the opposite — the more he moves in the power of God, the more he handles His Word, and the more he processes the principles of the Gospel — the stronger he must become. You must find more stillness. It must be more economical and efficient in the use of its energy. And he must be able to do much more, wearing out less, because his spiritual engine should use less fuel; its ministerial transmission should have been made more efficient.

Much of the energy we expend is from anxiety and worry. We don't sleep well, we expend mental energy worrying and anticipating disaster, and we bleed out drop by drop, like a woman with a flow of blood: drop by drop she bleeds and grows weak. And so it is often with the children of God. Many of the emotional dips and collapses of ministry come out of worry and anxiety, not because God wants it to be, or because the nature of the work makes it unavoidable. When one learns to be still in the Lord, that posture becomes our point of power.

What does Isaiah 26: 3 say? “You will keep in perfect peace the one whose mind continues on you; because he has trusted you ”. By the way, the word "persevere" implies a firm decision to stay focused on God in the long run. This is not necessarily easy or natural. The human tendency is to set our sights on circumstances.

When we set our sights on God, this keeps us still and in harmony. Psalm 46:10 invites us to find that point of powerful stillness by meditating on the power and lordship of God: "Be still, and know that I am God." There are many other texts that tell us about the power that resides in the persevering cultivation of stillness. We have already seen the words of Isaiah 30:15. It says, “In rest and repose you will be saved; in quietness and trust it will be your strength ”.

Sometimes the best we can do in the middle of a crisis is to simply put our hands down, resist the tendency to act compulsively, and deliberately focus on God's promises. When we have done all that is on our part, then it is time to step aside and focus on Him, confidently awaiting the salvation that will undoubtedly come. That posture of faith unleashes divine power and glorifies Him through our trust. When anxiety and fear threaten to overwhelm and weaken us, we have to look away from the storm and say like the psalmist David: “Why are you downcast, my soul, And are you troubled within me? Wait on God; because I still have to praise him, my Salvation and my God ”.

There is something about stillness… not stillness like any stillness; it is a stillness in God. It is a stillness in which the devil may be roaring around you, storms rising around your life. People whisper to you that destruction is coming, and you are confident and calm in the Lord. You become quiet and you focus on the foundation that is Christ, like a spiritual samurai. You focus on the faithfulness of God and let the world revolve around you, inaccessible to its fluctuations; you forget yourself and you get into the center of God, stable and unshakable, and you find that impenetrable place of refuge and stillness. That inner posture has incredible power!

Let's look at Jesus in the boat, the storm raging around him. It looks like the boat is going to sink. The disciples are mad with fear and believe that the boat is about to sink. And there is the Lord, sleeping soundly. The disciples approach Jesus and demand: “Lord, don't you see that we are sinking? How do you get careless like this? And the Lord wakes up; look around him. For a moment, he contemplates the storm, the wind and the sea that roar threateningly, and then he says, "Peace." That's all. Matthew states succinctly that, “getting up, he rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great bonanza ”. Immediately the sea became like glass; Everything calmed down, and they were amazed. And the Lord reproaches them: "Why do you fear, men of little faith?" Luke declares that, "In fear, they marveled, and said to one another: Who is this, that even the winds and the waters he commands, and they obey him?"

What allowed the Lord to be calm in the midst of the storm? He knew who he was. He stayed focused on his divine nature. He knew that he had a mission to fulfill, that he was God Himself, and that this storm ultimately had no power to threaten them. As long as he was in that boat, he absolutely could not sink, because he was inside it, standing confidently on his identity as the Son of God.

And so it has to be in our life, beloved brother or sister. We have to say, “Lord, help me find peace in the midst of the storm. Help me to stand on what you have declared, to silence the voices of fear and be still, while I deliberately look at you and remember your promise to never leave me or forsake me. Allow me to stay focused on my identity as a child of God, precious in your eyes, object of your care and protection.

And what happens? When you stand on the word that God has declared, finding the spiritual axis from which to undertake the battle that lies ahead, and entering that state of powerful stillness, then you will have a chance to see the salvation of the Lord. Then sooner or later the blessing will come to your life. It may take weeks, months, years, but you will see the salvation of Jehovah, and in the meantime you will be at ease as you confidently wait on the Lord. The storm will rage around, but you will have peace of mind, knowing that God has promised victory at the end of the process.