Be Still

For as long as I can remember I have been a thinker, more honestly, an overthinker. Add to that a natural drive to be productive, a hunger to learn more and reach for perfection, and a strong desire to help others, and I tend to have a mind that is overloaded with thoughts of concern about what else I should be doing, how I can improve, and how I can reach out to others more. Add to that the temptation to allow voices on social media to dictate how I should be doing everything I am doing (or not doing) and life can seem very overwhelming very quickly, and I find it difficult to be still.

Being productive, being a life-long learner, helping others, and gleaning good advice or practices from people on social media are not bad things, but when I allow all of these things to consume my thoughts, it becomes exhausting. Without even realizing it, my strength and joy are slowly replaced with to-do lists, do-more lists, and be-more lists.

Can anyone else relate? Maybe you don't overthink the same things I do, but you are exhausted all the same by the thoughts that way you down.

Recently, the Lord has been teaching me through His word how to practice being still.

Psalm 37: 1-5, 7

Fret not yourself because of evildoers;

be not envious of wrongdoers!

Trust in the LORD, and do good;

dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

Delight yourself in the LORD,

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!

This psalm begins with what not to do. Fret not. The word fret means to heat oneself in vexation (annoyance, frustration, or worry). Isn't that human nature? We naturally tend toward vexation. We behave as if thinking about and expressing our annoyance, frustration, and worry will make us feel better, like a warm, comforting fire. But that fire, if kindled, will wax out of control. No matter what it is we allow ourselves to fret about, it can quickly become exhausting and destructive.

Instead, the psalmist points us toward God's way. A life-giving way.

TRUST (confide in, set your hope in)

The way to be still always begins with trust.

God drew near, beckoning us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and we are accepted and made right with Him through faith (trust) in Jesus. It is our confidence and conviction in Jesus and what He accomplished for us on the cross that connects us to our Creator. But trust in Jesus doesn't transfer over to ourselves and our best efforts after salvation. We are called to trust God for a lifetime, to set our hope in Him over and over again, and to confidently depend on Him and His way. This means that we can surrender our attempts to figure everything out, and we can rest our heads on our pillows at night and sleep peacefully because He is in control.

Verse 3 paints a picture of the life-giving boundaries God has given us to live in and what it is like for those who rest their hope in Him: "Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness." "Befriend faithfulness" can be translated as "cherish faithfulness and feed on his faithfulness".

God invites us to dwell in the inheritance He has provided, and find our forever home in Him. He bids us pause each day and behold the breath-taking beauty of His glory. He calls us to dine in the peaceful pastures of His kingdom and drink from the streams of living water. He entreats us to come, cherish Him above all else, and permanently rest our souls in His loving care. Why? Because He is faithful, He always has been, and He always will be.

Trust necessitates surrender to God.

Trust necessitates dependence on God.

DELIGHT

We can only truly delight in someone we trust.

Delight yourself in the Lord is a small statement yet it has significant implications. Matthew 6:21 tells us that wherever our treasure is that is where our heart will be. In other words, a person's greatest love can be identified by examining who or what they are investing their time, passion, and money into the most.

Not only does God want us to trust Him, but He also desires for us to enjoy sweet intimacy with Him. You see, something miraculous happens when we find our greatest joy in the Lord. Our hearts begin to change, and our old desires begin to pale in comparison to being known and loved by our Creator.

Matthew Henry puts it this way:

"He (God) has not promised to gratify all the appetites of the body and the humours of the fancy but to grant all the desires of the heart, all the cravings of the renewed sanctified soul. What is the desire of the heart of a good man? It is this, to know, and love, and live to God, to please him and to be pleased in him."

It is a renewed heart, a heart that is yielding to the lifelong process of transformation, that grows in its desire "to know, love, and live to God, to please him and be pleased by him. When we dedicate time to commune with the Lord and enjoy Him, our delight in Him will grow, and as our delight in Him grows, we will find that our desires begin to align with His word, His character, and His ways. As we delight in the Lord, fretting will feel less and less like a warm, comforting fire and more like an obtrusive enemy. One cannot taste perfection and be satisfied with anything less. "Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!" (Psalm 34:8)

Commit (roll (as a stone) off of oneself)

We can only truly commit our lives to someone we trust.

This scripture is instructing us to take the weight of navigating our lives off of ourselves. It instructs us to roll every care, concern, circumstance, desire, and all of our plans onto the one who rolled the stone away from the mouth of the tomb and walked out. Jesus carried the full weight of our guilt and shame on the cross, He felt the full weight of God's wrath for our sins, and He finished the redemptive work God gave Him to do for us, so He can be trusted with the full weight of our lives. He can be trusted with every part of us. He does not grow weary, ever. He does not sleep. His strength is matchless. There is nothing He cannot carry. "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28) The scripture instructs us to place our lives into the hands of our caring, capable Father because He sees what we cannot see, knows what we do not know, and He will be faithful to complete the good work He started in us.

Finally, we come to the part in Psalm 37 that declares, "Be still..." The words "be still" in Hebrew are actually one word, Damam, meaning to be silent, to stop, to rest.

This psalm gives us a fuller picture and understanding of what it means to be still before the Lord. Trusting, delighting, and committing are all pieces of being still before the Lord. In order to stop and wait patiently for the Lord, He must be someone we trust and are wholly willing to let navigate our lives. Part of being still is setting aside time to enjoy the Lord, not because He is working within our timetable or checking off our wish lists, but because He is out-of-this-world good; all He offers us and all He does for us is good. All of it.

Being still doesn't always mean being physically still, although we do need to stop and rest physically. Notice in verse 3 the scripture states, “trust in the Lord and do good.” We can be still before the Lord even in the midst of activity. Choosing to trust God, His plan, His path, and His provision will silence the exhausting, potentially destructive thoughts that tend to overtake our minds and hearts and give us rest. As we delight in God’s character we get a front-row seat to the mighty work of His hand in our lives. We get to observe what only He can do, and what we never thought was possible.

Being still happens as we choose, over and over again, to trust God and His record of perfect faithfulness and love toward us. And what happens to the burdensome thoughts, the “to-do”, “do-more”, and “be-more” lists, and the what-if questions? They are silenced. The fretting fire is extinguished.

Instead of fretting today, let’s choose to

Trust

Delight

and

Commit…

This is how we still our minds and hearts before the Lord.

Sincerely,

Amy