Be Still.

It was a morning that started like any other morning in our house (sarcasm implied). First, I spilled my coffee by accidentally laying it on a pen that I didn’t see. And then 10 minutes later, I opened the cabinet to get a cereal bowl for Charlie, and the second I opened the cabinet, a coffee cup fell, and shattered all over the floor around me. “Okay so this is how my day is going to go” I thought. I had socks on, but I knew one thing. If I didn’t want a shard of ceramic cup in my foot, I needed to be still.

Still. That is my word for 2022. The word kept echoing in my head over and over, towards the end of 2021, and my go to verse is Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.”

And we are 10 days in to 2022, and the year is already living up to the word.

I had decisions to make, and I was making them based on someone’s word. This decision holds a lot of weight, so I definitely got all of the information about the possibilities of moving forward I could before making a decision.

It seemed like everything was great, and I sent emails confirming the decision, and then I got the shocking email that the person wasn’t going to keep their word. Like at all. Even though I had the commitment in writing.

And not only were they not budging on going back on their word, they also weren’t offering much hope for the future either. I felt like I did this morning. Like a coffee cup had shattered around me, and I had to be really still or completely lose it.

I was in a battle that I had no control over, and I had lost. At least, that is how it felt in the moment.

I had prayed for God’s favor, and it didn’t look like I had it.

And sometimes when we are in the battle, it can feel like the battle is lost. It looks like the schemes of the enemy have won. And you feel stuck, like “Now what?”

Be still.

In a way, I felt like I was stuck in the middle of a battle between man and God. Have you ever felt like this? It is not a good feeling.

This is what happens when we trust in the promises of man instead of the word of God. And when we consume ourselves with the “what if’s”, instead of declaring the “it is written’s.”

But if there is anything that I have learned about battles, it is this… when you abide in Christ, you are on the side of victory.

Our battle may not always feel victorious in the moment. So we always need to be mindful Whose battle we are fighting, but more importantly, Who is fighting our battle. Because this is what God will say to us in these moments…

I will fight for you; you need only to be still.

What a promise.The Lord will fight for us. He will come to the aid of His people, and watch over them, provide for them and care for them because He is their God.

But what exactly does it mean to be still?

But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in the house of God;
I trust in the lovingkindness of God forever and ever. Psalm 52:8

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about some roses that lived a long time. A lot longer than roses should live. They actually still haven’t died as they usually do. Right now, most of them are still standing with just the petals drying around the edges. And I have been thinking a lot about those roses. And how Isaiah 35:1 speaks of a rose that will grow in a place that could not sustain life, and relates this rose to the promise of Israel’s future.

This rose, that would grow despite its hopeless circumstance, because this rose didn’t grow because of its circumstance.

And a rose, or a tree, doesn’t grow because of its circumstance, or because it tries or because of what goes on around it. It grows because it is still.

Isaiah 35 continues to paint a really beautiful picture of the promise for God’s people. The joy in redemption, and the assurance of rescue. The blind will see, the deaf will hear. The lame will leap like a deer, the mute will shout. Water will gush in the wilderness, there will be streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool. And there will be a highway called “the Way of Holiness”, and only for those who walk on that Way will walk on it.

And it is just not a promise for those who walked in the days of the Old Testament. The promise is for His chosen ones, the one who have decided to follow Jesus.

Wow, what a secure hope we have. And a beautiful future we can behold.

How to be still.

Being still doesn’t mean that we completely shelter ourselves, and be completely unmovable. It means that we follow Him in confidence in who He is. We let go of the things that keep us from completely knowing that He is God.

We plant ourselves in Living Water, and abide in Him, and let our roots grow deep. It means that we do as He says, trusting that His ways are higher than ours, and that He will work all things for the good of those who love Him.

And when we can’t see beyond our circumstances and think the battle is lost, and when it is hard to see His love, faithfulness, grace, power, and goodness, we must believe that it. Not because we see it or feel it, but because He said so and because it is written. And if it is written, it is so. And if it is so, than we can be still and know He is God.