Paused

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. Psalms 46:10 TPT

Whenever we face times of crisis, after a while, we take action.  After a hurricane, we wait for it to be safe to go outside, and then we take action. We are used to taking action after times of crisis, natural disasters, or any kind of disaster.  

However, there are times when all that is required of us is to stay in and be still. Yet we are not used to that.  We are not used to waiting and not doing anything.

The time has come when stillness is necessary. We must be inactive. We must sit with God! Sabbath. 

What is required in times of stillness is to stay put, pause, and not do the things we are used to doing. 

What does it even mean to be still? Why is it necessary for us to be still and honor the Sabbath? What God is telling us in the Bible is to be still, to let ourselves become weak, to let go, to release. 

We are used to moving, to being strong, tackling our to do lists; however, God is telling us the opposite when He gave us a day of rest. He is telling us to surrender and to trust Him. 

I think these days most of us are comfortable - too comfortable - with being busy. And surrounded by busy.  We are used to being in traffic: it is part of our daily lives. We are even used to being stuck in traffic sometimes. 

Here God is telling us to stop doing what we are used to doing; to pause our frantic, daily lives; to step out of the craziness, the noise, and the movement for a long time - a mere day - so that we will be able to look at Him. 

Above everything else that has our attention right now; politics, pandemic, crisis, disease, pain, everything—stop and look at Him.

Hebrews 4:7-11 NET  So God again ordains a certain day, “Today,” speaking through David after so long a time, as in the words quoted before, “ O, that today you would listen as He speaks! Do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken afterward about another day. Consequently a Sabbath rest remains for the people of God. For the one who enters God’s rest has also rested from his works, just as God did from His own works. Thus we must make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by following the same pattern of disobedience.

God is telling us to stop making great efforts to achieve or obtain something. To stop trying. To stop and stay still. This goes against everything we have learned to do. And certainly feels against everything we think we “need” to do in order to take care of our bills, put food on the table, a roof over our heads- all the worldly pressure we each face daily.  

Yet through every needing striving moment we are to relinquish control and trust God. He will provide rest. Seek His wisdom in the Bible. 

God’s word takes us back to the Holy Sabbath in the Ten Commandments. God’s creation needs rest. We need to be able to have times of stillness before God. That stillness will yield some deep results in us because the deepest truths are often discovered in stillness and prayer with Him.