Still
An inner bearing lays a path before me that I’ve trod—sometimes strayed from, but always returned to—ever since my youth. I have a yearning for still spaces in the world, places that have some remnant of Eden, still caught in that dreadful pause just before the flaming sword swung the gates shut. I usually don’t even know I’m walking that path, but I always seem to recognise the stillness that settles over me—sometimes flowing from a single flower in an unexpected place, sometimes from the grandeur of some vast unbroken horizon.
Stillness can be elusive; a mirage of anticipation that beckons yet fails to deliver. I’ve searched for it, grasped at it, despaired at it, and been surprised by it.
Sometimes I’ve forgotten it. But then, like an old friend unseen for a decade or more, stillness creeps up on me in some hidden place and embraces me as though it had been only yesterday that we had said goodbye. Such is the way of stillness.
“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (Psalm 46:10, ESV)
It is the worst kept secret that, this best known of Psalms, holds one of my favourite lines. I’ve claimed to know it well, but maybe it knows me better than I knew it. You see, for an embarrassingly long time I’ve heard the command, not ringing from some lofty place, but whispered as an invitation to lay my head beside some quiet stream in a forgotten valley—and there be enveloped by the blanket of God’s presence. To be sure, I’ve pursued this whisper, succumbed to its invitation, and felt the presence of God minister to my weary soul in treasured ways. I’ll not deny it, stillness in this way is a balm for the wandering heart; prone to distraction, fooled by the pleasures this world offers, and desperately needing to be tethered once again to the goodness of God—stillness has been the door through which I’ve discovered the grace of God anew.
Yet I’m learning—or rather, I’m un-learning—that the old companion called ‘assumption’ is a poor friend. I had assumed that I knew the depths of stillness. I assumed that the quiet spaces of this world could be gently stepped into—that taking nothing and leaving nothing as I walked through the wild, was a good way to embrace the knowledge of God. But here I am, missing the message again—assuming rather than listening, imposing rather than yielding—and I wonder if that was what I should have seen from the beginning.
Is it true that the quiet valleys of this world harbour stillness like some treasure to be dug up? Quite possibly. But I’m not convinced that is what the ancient song-writer is calling us to. Rather, it strikes me that there is a tone of command here, a tone better heard if we had sat with the desperate disciples on a wind whipped lake, the night dread gripped their hearts. Maybe, if they could have heard above the pounding of blood in their ears, or the ripping of timber from its binding, or the primal scream that death pronounces just before it descends—maybe the disciples would have heard the singular clarion call of command that must be obeyed.
“Peace. Be still.”
This was no gentle invitation to rest. This was the potter reminding the clay on whose wheel it spun, whose hands had plucked it from the ground, and whose will envisaged its shape.
”Peace. Be still.”
Rather than an invitation to rest, this was a call to cease striving. The former can be gently discovered, maybe even stumbled into by accident, while the latter is only found once I’ve refused to bow to my own effigy and collapsed with bone-weariness of my own rebellion—or maybe it is better described as finally opening my eyes to the loving embrace of my father instead of flailing my arms in the stupor that comes with night terrors.
I mention that because I’ve seen it in my own children. I’ve heard their cries in the night, rushed to their room to comfort them, only to be fought off with flailing arms; their saviour isn’t seen, only the shadows and monsters of the night fill their vision. First with gentle voice, but then with firm command that carries the edge of comfort, I subdue their fight with hands that hold them tight, and a voice that is meant to remind them of my strength.
”Wake up. Stop fighting. It’s Dad. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. It’s okay.”
That’s what I believe God is saying “Wake up. Stop fighting.”
So by all means, take that walk by the shores of a deserted stretch of coastline, sit on a moss covered fallen tree in some distant valley, or find a peak among the clouds. God is not far from those who search for him among the pages of his Word in still spaces of this world. But maybe the stillness you need isn’t found in an invitation, but in submission.
“Wake up. Stop fighting.”
“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (Psalm 46:10, ESV)
