Be still and know that I AM
--God
Psalm 46:10
4 Then somewhere he said this about the seventh day of
creation: God rested on the seventh day from all his works.[a] 5 But again, in
the passage above, God said, They will never enter my rest![b] 6 Therefore,
it’s left open for some to enter it, and the ones who had the good news
preached to them before didn’t enter because of disobedience. 7 Just as it says
in the passage above, God designates a certain day as “today,” when he says
through David much later, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, don’t have stubborn
hearts.’
8 If Joshua
gave the Israelites rest, God wouldn’t have spoken about another day later on.
9 So you see that a Sabbath rest is left open for God’s people. 10 The one who
entered God’s rest also rested from his works, just as God rested from his own.
First summary of the message
11
Therefore, let’s make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall
by following the same example of disobedience, --Hebrews 4:4-11
" But I Don’t Have Time to Stop"
How many times have I whispered those words under my
breath? It is a constant frenzy of activity
that all too often drives us from an event to a meeting to a project to a
‘situation’…the list never ends. We just
know that if we stop, everything that we are holding so precariously will
simply collapse on the floor around us, and we’ll have an even bigger
mess. For this state of frenzy, I have
many examples as to why this is untrue, but I will share two.
In his book “The Deep Change Field Guide,” Robert Quinn
shares the story of a hermit that lived in the woods. Each summer he would cut enough wood to heat
his cabin through the winter. One day, however, he heard the weather forecast
that a huge storm was coming much earlier than previous years. It would be here later that day. The hermit sprinted to his woodpile. As he
picked up his saw to begin, he could see that he had not yet taken the time to
sharpen the blade. “No matter,” he thought,” I just need to get as much done as
I can.” He began to cut. The more he cut
wood, the duller the blade became. He
told himself over and over that he needed to stop and sharpen the saw, but he
just kept cutting out of panic. As the
snow began to fall, he plopped exhausted beside a huge pile of uncut wood.
The second story goes like this: once upon a time, there
wasn’t even time; there was nothing at all.
With words never before heard, God sang everything into existence – in 6
days. (don’t get lost in the millions of years / six days thing…hang on!) Then
something truly amazing happened. God
wasn’t tired, didn’t need a sports drink, or an Epsom salt bath. God did something to show us the pattern for
our lives. On the seventh day, God
stopped and rested.
God heals and nurtures in the pauses of life. When we are still, God speaks. If we continue into the busyness of trying to
bring order to chaos, we will never recognize when we get trapped in the
perpetual movement instead of forward momentum.
I think that it is an evil voice that tells us that we must keep busy,
especially when it’s doing God’s work.
We begin to think that doing church is the same as being the church.
Again, in Quinn’s DCFG, he says,”[people] prefer to stay
where they are comfortable. But they
need an excuse to do so. ‘We have no time’ neutralizes personal
responsibility. That mentality lets
[people] trade deep change now for a crisis
that will occur in the future… most of us tend to ignore warning signals that
suggest a need for change. As performance levels fall, our stress goes up, and
our vitality and drive wane. Our focus narrows, and we increase our commitment
to existing strategies, making it difficult to change.” (page 19)
God wants us to break the cycle of self-destructive
behavior. In order to do that, we all
need to take time to stop, to wait, and to be still. When we do, God will speak and guide, and we
will be blessed.
Grace and Peace,
