“Be quiet and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10 NLV)

How often are you quiet?  Are you quiet in your suffering?  Are you quite in your success, your labor, your resting?  What did God mean by “be quiet”?  Some translations read: “be still”.

Here is what I know from experience: I am prone to sin, and “where words are many, sin is not absent.” (Prov 10:19) I know I talk too much and too soon.  But I think there is more to being quiet, or still, than just silence.  It is calming the busyness of life.  It is removing ourselves from the chaos of TV and emails and texts and phone calls and reports and social media and bills and insurance and cars and homes and cleaning and fixing and hobbies and leisure and…  You get the idea.  Being still and knowing that God is God is the process of stepping away from everything else to center our souls on what is most important; what is eternal.  (see Luke 10:38-42 and 12:33-34)

Re-centering is desperately needed, and in our culture, we need to do it often.  Without it we forget; we loose sight of eternity.  We become caught up and anxious; ungrounded.  We loose our footing and ability to think clearly and make good decisions.  There is power in quieting our souls.  Great power.

In martial arts I have learned how to be calm even with someone standing across from me who’s sole intention is to physically conquer me.  It seems counter intuitive that I would seek to be calm at a time like this, but without that calm I am much more likely to make mistakes.  I would also get tired much faster.  With inner stillness I can think and react clearly.  Panic and fear are my enemies.

I have found this to be very similar to the battles I face in life.  The enemy of my soul stands across from me threatening me and those I love with destruction.  And I know that my adversary is not powerless.  His threats are not empty (although ultimately I know the end of the story!).  But I can either react out of fear, or I can be centered, trusting in my good God, not fearing any outcome, and using my power to fight well.

“My power.”  What does that mean?  In the same way that I have been trained in martial arts, I have been trained by God through His Word and my experience of walking in step with His Spirit (Psalm 18:34).  That training instructs me how to trust.  I falter in this all the time, but I know it is where I need to be, and how I get there is by finding my quite place with God.  I let His Spirit and His Word wash over me and I sink my roots deep into His perfect, unchanging reality of absolute sovereignty and unconditional love.

This is the secret of the quiet place.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding”  (Prov 3:5)