The Hard Work of Being Still
Rest is not the absence of effort but a discipline we have to learn.
There is a line in Psalm 46 that people love to put on cards and walls. "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." We often take the first four words and leave the rest. That is a mistake, but an understandable one. Stillness is hard.
Consider what the psalm is describing. The earth gives way. Mountains fall into the sea. Nations are in uproar and kingdoms totter. It is not a calm scene. Into that noise comes the instruction to stop. Not because the danger is imaginary, but because the one speaking is larger than the danger.
Being still is not the same as doing nothing. Anyone who has tried to sit quietly for ten minutes knows this. The mind runs to the unanswered email, the argument half-finished, the worry that has no solution tonight. Stillness is a kind of labour. It asks us to loosen our grip on the things we cannot control and to admit that the world does not hold together because we are holding it.
So try it in small amounts. A minute before you open your phone. A pause before you answer. A breath before you decide you already know what the day will cost you.
The verse does not promise the mountains will stay put. It promises that God is God while they move. That is enough to be going on with. Be still, and know.
More in Devotional
The Weight You Were Not Made to Carry
Rest is not a reward for the strong; it is an offer made first to the tired.
The Permission to Stop
Rest is not a reward you earn at the end of the work; it is a gift offered in the middle of it.
