“Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10
I’m not sure what ever happened to it,
but for months I used to have a sign I’d made that hung in my kitchen and said,
“STOP TALKING!” I had more than a few
questioning glances at it from visitors, but it wasn’t meant for them, it was
solely for me: a daily reminder to “be still.”
I am far from a quiet, confident and assured person, and I often battle
the endless ramblings in my head that can end up, if unchecked, stealing my
confidence in the Lord. It was at a time
earlier this year when I was particularly struggling with a mind that couldn’t
seem to rest that a dear friend gave me her definition of to “be still” as
in Psalm 46:10: Hold
your peace, stop your talking, stand still. For years I had confused the “voices” in
my head as God trying to get something through to me that I just wasn’t smart
enough to understand. This only brought
confusion, discouragement, and reinforced a horrible habit of thinking that I was
missing what God was trying to say to me.
The times are too many to count that I spent worrying about all the ways
I must have been disappointing God by not figuring out what He was wanting.
It was a lightbulb moment for me when I
first began to learn that, although God does often speak in a still, small
voice, it is not a voice of guilt or condemnation (as I so often feel when left
to my own thoughts), nor one spoken so quietly that we have to strain to hear
it. I used to try so hard to block out
all the noise in my head so I could hear what God was saying through it,
and then (only recently) I began to realize that I can’t turn off the
rambling (doubts about who I am, who God is; the endless reasoning about
things), but I can ignore it. A quote
I’ve always loved says, “You can’t stop
a bird from alighting on your head, but you can stop it from building a nest.”
Isaiah 36 and 37 have some powerful
examples of this. Israel is under threat
of attack by the King of Assyria, and repeatedly over these two chapters we see
a leader of Assyria trying to undermine Israel’s trust in God and cast doubt on
His ability to deliver them. “What confidence is this in which you
trust?” he says. And while God tells
them later on in chapter 37, “Do not be
afraid of the words which You have heard,” the verse that really stuck out
to me was 36:21: “But they held their
peace and answered [the chief of staff of Assyria] not a word, for the King’s
commandment was, “Do not answer him.””
It’s important for us to remember that
there is an adversary, Satan, who is desperate to steal from us all joy, peace
and assurance in God. He often does so
by sowing tiny seeds of doubt or a slight variation of truth into our
lives. This is why it’s so important to “take captive every thought...casting down arguments and every high
thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.” (2 Corinthians
10:5) I like one version of that verse that says we need to “demolish
arguments.” When we start battling our
own feelings and doubts about who God is, we need to demolish them. Ignoring them, as I mentioned earlier, is
only half of the picture…lies are only taken down by truth. “We need to have appropriating faith when
it comes to God’s promises and should make His Word our own personal
possession…Put your finger on a promise and say, “It is mine.”” (Streams in
the Desert, Dec. 29)
We’ve been given an incredible body of
armor to wear each day in this “battle”: a helmet of salvation, the belt of
truth, the sword of the Spirit, the shield of faith and the breastplate of
righteousness.
“The
work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and
assurance forever.” (Isaiah
32:17)
The next time you’re in a battle, tell
yourself to STOP TALKING, measure up what you’re feeling against who God says
He is and then believe it. Then we will
be amazed to find the quietness and assurance we’ve longed for to walk
confidently with the Lord.
