Be still and know...
“Be still and know that I am God” or as in The Passion Translation “Surrender your anxiety! Be silent and stop your striving and you will see that I am God. I am the God above all the nations, and I will be exalted throughout the whole earth.” Psalm 46:10.
There is a story written to us, as we make space to be still and listen. For me it is often best heard when I find myself in beauty, wildness, in the book of creation itself. It is a letter written to us, a letter of love. When I open my senses in simplicity, in child like wonder there is no doubting its message. God is here, just as I am here, so too is He. He is present.
He is here.
His story, poetry, His love letters are contained and expressed within the realities of beauty, of wildness, in the magnitude and detail, in simplicity, in intensity that surround me.
It is here as I make myself still to Him, to all ‘this’, that I hear Him, searching me out, meeting, me, abiding with me, embracing me, making Himself known to me.
And in this divine meeting I am stilled, stilled by thankfulness, by love, I am aware I can touch Him, in His beauty. I am stilled in this collision, and union of a mere moment, a moment I chose to turn towards this reality, still myself and know, find, discover. As if all of creation was waiting for this moment of encounter, when I would find Him here.
I turn towards, He reveals Himself, I welcome Him.
It is here, I do not ask, enquire, or even petition for things, because in the stillness, in the surrender, as I quiet myself and stop, He is, and He is enough. It’s enough that I know, know Him, His presence. I am quieted and content in this shared moment of presence.
I know I will find Him, if I just leave the noise, the fabrications of life, if I clear the space, still myself, steal away to beauty. Read His second book, His creation, a detailed love letter, perhaps only the childlike can fully read. He is making Himself known, searching us out, telling us about Himself, calling to our hearts.
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”Psalm 8: 3-6 NIV
Yet here, we behold Him, He is present, He is close.