Revd Donald Horsfield

Be still
Be still and know
Be still and know that I am
Be still and know that I am God

Reading Psalm 46:10 laid out in this way I was moved to meditation...

Be still

What does it mean? How do you do it? Does it mean stop moving about?

Sit still or stand still: just look around, or close your eyes, and listen. Try to find the centre point of the turning wheel of your own existence. There’s movement all around you, but you are still.

Of course, you can’t have perfect stillness in this life. Your heart is beating and your mind is always active. Perhaps it means being aware of the movement around you, knowing, but at a deeper level than usual, what’s going on.

So…

Be still and know

Knowledge is a wonderful thing. Along with wisdom and understanding, we are blessed with knowledge. We know God, in whom there is fulness of life. Deep are the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God.

Can we know God as God knows us? Can we, by searching, find out God? The implied answer to that Biblical question is a resounding ‘No’. But there is a promise, ‘seek and you will find’.

We live constantly within that paradox, and somehow ‘being still’ is the solution to it. 2 Chronicles 20:17 tells us to ‘stand still and see the victory of God on your behalf’.

Knowing that you can’t do anything to find God is actually the way to be ‘found by God’ and so, paradoxically, in being found you also find what you’re looking for.

But there’s more to it yet…

Be still and know that I am

‘I AM’. the great revelation to Moses, Yahweh, that continuous tense of the verb ‘to be’. God is ‘being’ itself – the source and ground of all being.

Getting to know God, you have to start with yourself. Accept the wonder, the miracle, of your own being. Say to yourself ‘I am…’ and let the wonder of it sweep you up. Wow! How on earth do you respond to that discovery?!

Get to know yourself (and love yourself!). Look into your heart and examine your behaviour and your motives. You are not what you could be. Strive to be your best self, reaching out for that which can enable it to happen.

You will be affirmed in who you are and encouraged to become the person you could be. As this is happening, you will be getting to know God as intimately as God knows you.

And it will be as if someone were saying to you…

Be still and know that I am God.

And you will smile and be at peace.