The way to always begin anything is to begin to still everything.
Stillness is your strength.
In a wild, wearying world, this is the realest reality: The only way to still stay standing is to make time to stand still. This is what your soul needs to know in this moment: You don’t need to strive, you don’t need to strain, you simply need to still.
Because your stillness says you’re trusting Him still.
This art of being still is hard. Stillness may be the most difficult to learn, and it takes time and prayerful practice. As the theologian of old, F. B. Meyer, wrote, “We must cultivate the habit of stillness in our lives, if we would detect and know God.”1 This habit, this way of life, of interior soul stillness — this will take time to learn. But we absolutely must learn the spiritual practice of stillness if we want to know God.
This matters: No stillness — no God. But know stillness — know God.
In the story of the Exodus, when the people of God are looking for a way out of a disaster, a way beyond the overwhelm of an attacking horde, and a way through the Red Sea, God Himself is all the verbs in the story of the way through the sea. God will do the moving — you must simply still.
Do you hear the Word of the Lord for you — you — today?
The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still. — Exodus 14:14 NIV
God knew this would always be the battle, whatever waves you are battling today: Your battle is to keep still — while God does the battle. Your battle is to still — and, no matter what, to trust God still. This is the strange miracle: Stillness is always your first step through any Red Sea Road.
The fear of any storm falls away when we still long enough to be in awe of God. In your stillness, your God moves.
“Be still and know God” is what the psalmist beckoned in chapter 46. The literal translation of “be still” in Psalm 46 is raphah — which actually means to drop, to hang limp, sink down, to let go.2 God’s invitation to us to know Him is an invitation to still long enough to simply let go — let go — of all the fears and worries that have a hold on us — so He can hold us.
Right in this moment, imagine one situation you’d do anything to fight to change, one thing you wish had a wildly different story. Now, be still... which literally means letting your hands hang limp, letting your arms sink down. And simply let God hold you.
You can only truly let go of the thing you’re holding tightly when you trust how it’s completely safe in God’s hands. You can only truly be still in your soul when you trust your life is better in the hands of God than yours.
Be still — why?
Be still — to know God.
Why know God? Because the greater the knowing of God, the greater the trusting in God. Trust in God — and you start to doubt having any real fears in this world.
The depth of your trust for someone is a function of the depth of your knowledge of that someone. Be still and know God — because the greater the knowing of God, the greater the trust in God. What I have realized in my journey through all kinds of heartbreak is:
If I have trust issues with God, the real issue is that I don’t really know God.
What would happen today if every time you felt a need to hustle, you hushed your soul and stilled?
What if you saw every need to hurry as a kind of warning light on your internal dashboard — signaling you to still?
When you take time to still, you aren’t falling behind; you are letting everything else fall away, and letting God alone be your way.
The way of Jesus is to have a regular rhythm and spiritual practice that always begins in stillness. Jesus Himself “would withdraw to deserted places and pray” (Luke 5:16 NRSVA).
If you want to learn the art of stillness and knowing God, you have to ask your soul:
- What are you willing to withdraw from to be still and draw close to God?
- Where in your mind, in your soul, do you need to stop racing and simply be still right now?
- How do we have a way of life that takes the way of stillness — because who can afford to miss the actual way to know God?
- Can you begin by practicing stillness just two minutes every day? First thing, before your feet hit the floor, before the waves of the day hit, can you be like an Israelite and take two minutes to be still, soul-still, and gaze on God, simply trusting He will make a way through your day’s waves?
- F. B. Meyer, Psalms: Bible Readings (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2016), 60.
- NAS Exhaustive Concordance, s.v. "raphah," accessed Feb 21, 2024, https://biblehub.com
Excerpted with permission from Sacred Prayer by Ann Voskamp, copyright Ann Voskamp.
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Your Turn
Are you striving and straining? Do you find your mind spinning and racing? What might happen if you took the leap to simply be still? What might happen if you stopped to be still and really know God? ~ Devotionals Daily
