So as I have been doing the hard work of studying to be quiet, the Lord thundered another Word in my spirit during yet another one of my sessions of angst.
Around the beginning of this year – fully a year and half since the time He first declared to me quite emphatically to “study to be quiet,” – we were having a conversation, He and I. I was lamenting about the lack of energy and strength and vitality which I felt should be mine as I go about doing the work and said to Him, “You told me to study to be quiet. I have done that. I feel I have learned from that. What is my next assignment? I have worked on being quiet and now I am ready to get up and move forward! Thank you for ‘making me lie down in green pastures’ for a while, Lord. You’re so kind. Now what’s next?”
And you know what He said? I seriously was just speechless. He said, “Be still. Just be still. Be still and KNOW. Be still and know that I AM. Be still and know that I AM GOD.”
“Be still and know that I am God.”
Psalm 46:10
In other words, if He had been speaking through a parent, it would have come out as “Sit down and be quiet. And don’t make me tell you again.”
Dutifully chastised, I bowed my head and whispered, “Ok. I hear You. I will.”
As He felt the drop in my spirit and the frustration which I was trying so very hard to keep in check, He settled in for a conversation. “Being still doesn’t mean I do not need you nor want you working for me. Being still doesn’t mean you can’t move forward. Being still doesn’t mean you have to take all of your dreams and goals and vision I have given you and lock them away in a drawer somewhere and sit and stare at the wall. That’s not what ‘be[ing] still and know[ing] that I am God’ means.”
Oh the beauty of what He began speaking to my heart that day and the conversation that has continued in the months and weeks since. I have learned so many things.
I have learned that being still is when His voice is clearest and loudest.
I have learned that being still is when my spirit is centered, my soul is restored, and my body achieves complete rest and renewal.
I have learned that being still requires an emptying of the voices around me which tell me who I am supposed to be, what I am supposed to be, why I should be doing all of the things, and why the world is going to fall apart around me if I don’t get up and go right now.
I have learned that being still fills my heart and mind with beauty, with joy, with the things which restore my virtue.
I have learned that being still allows me to once again experience the times of my life which were the most peaceful, had the deepest meaning, and which I thought might possibly have been completely stolen by the years and lost forever. I have found them again in the stillness with Him.
I have learned that being still is His gift to me.
melanishock.com 