By Shawn McMullen
“Be Still.”
I heard the words frequently as a child—in the middle of a church service, while interrupting an adult conversation, or when my brother and I held late night whispering sessions from our twin beds in the room we shared.
For the most part the words were spoken gently, although there were a few occasions when my conduct merited a sterner warning.
I don’t hear the words often today, although I’ve been thinking about them—not in the disciplinary sense, but in terms of what it means to “be still” as a child of God.
Busy schedules and daily pressures seem to be the norm today—to the point that many of us have learned to equate busyness with productivity. The more we hurry and extend ourselves, the more success we should enjoy.
Although there is truth to the “hard work brings success” formula, it doesn’t give us permission to make busyness a life priority. And it certainly doesn’t define our calling as Christians.
It’s a point easily missed. Sometimes we get so absorbed in the hectic pace of home life, business, and even our service to the church that we have little margin left to cultivate a personal and meaningful relationship with God. We get caught up in responsibilities, activities, and programs, and as a result, the one who deserves our time first and foremost winds up near the bottom of the list.
A Remedy
The psalmist offered a remedy for the kind of busyness that keeps us from drawing near to our heavenly Father. He wrote, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” (Psalm 46:10, 11, New International Version).
The English translation “be still” comes from the Hebrew word raphah, which means to slacken, abate, or cease. Perhaps we could say, “Slow down; take a deep breath; quit hurrying.” The psalmist seems to be urging us to relax our pace, cease our resistance, and learn to rest in God.
Nothing should be more important to the Christian.
This problem isn’t a new one. In the preface to his classic work, The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer wrote, “Modern Christianity is simply not producing the kind of Christian who can appreciate or experience the life in the Spirit. The words, ‘Be still, and know that I am God,’ mean next to nothing to the self-confident, bustling worshiper in this middle period of the twentieth century.”
On another occasion Tozer observed, “We slander God by our eagerness to serve him without knowing him.”
Point taken. So how can we quiet our souls and get to know God?
We can start by cultivating our listening skills. I’m afraid many of us spend most of our time in the presence of God talking—like little children who enter a room chattering and leave the same way. But when we slow down long enough to give God our undivided attention, when we take the necessary time to come silently into his presence, we enter a new world of learning.
Giving God Our Best
Stillness helps us hear God speak through his Word, his people, and his creation. It fosters quiet confidence and unshakeable trust. As God said through the prophet, “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength” (Isaiah 30:15).
It isn’t easy. I understand that. We want to give God our best. We work hard to glorify him and to extend his kingdom on earth. Those are noble—and God-honoring—goals. But what does “our best” really look like? Is it a matter of becoming the most effective, the most accomplished, or the most successful in one area of our lives? Or is it something else?
Look at it this way. If I devoted all my time to becoming the most effective preacher I can be, or the best leader, but in that pursuit wound up ignoring my family, shortchanging my friends, and neglecting my spiritual growth and personal walk with God, have I really given him my best?
In the eyes of God, our best isn’t relegated to an isolated achievement, no matter how great the achievement may be. Giving God our best requires a devotion and commitment that impacts our whole selves, our entire lives.
Sometimes, our pursuit of excellence—of doing our very best—can quietly become the enemy of rest. In our desire to succeed, to do good, and to honor God with our efforts, we can become so driven that we forget one essential truth: God didn’t just create us to work—he also created us to rest.
Excellence honors God, and we should pursue it in all our endeavors for him. But rest honors the Lord as well. And rest—along with the accompanying stillness it provides—can become one of the greatest positive change agents in the believer’s life.
Perhaps it’s time to reorder our lives according to the Lord’s own words: “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Very very good. Many of his thoughts I will use in some of my future messages while I am in the U.S. I will always give Shawn the credit for those thoughts. He sheds the same truth in a way that the folks will understand,