I was in the airport the other day, waiting for my plane, and while I was sitting in the gate area, I was watching this one guy – he had his laptop, his iPod with those little ear buds, one of them tucked in his right ear, and his tiny cell phone – his Bluetooth – clipped to his other ear. Everything at once – plus, the drone of airport chatter and music. There was a time that guy would have looked out of place, sitting there with his laptop and his cell phone and his iPod and his Bluetooth, but not so anymore, because it’s a noisy world, more so now than ever before.
In our cars, traveling from here to there, we flip on the CD player or tune in on talk radio. Or maybe we’re the one doing the talk-talk-talking to people on our hands-free cell phone. Maybe when we’re alone in the house, the first thing we do is to turn the TV, even if we’re not watching it… just to have some background noise, just to have the sound of something to keep us company. It’s like… we’re uneasy when it’s quiet.
And in the midst of all this, God commands us to be still and know that He is God. Friend, I think you’d agree, it’s so very difficult in this new high-tech world to find places and occasions that lend themselves to being still. And chances are, even if we do find such places and such times, we don’t like it! We’re not used to it. Silence seems like something foreign, something alien to the world now as we know it.
And I think this is why we need to make that effort to find those places and occasions to force our souls to be still. The New American Standard Bible translates those words “Be still” as “Cease striving.” That is: cease, forsake, leave, let it alone. One commentator notes that to be still “means to let fall; to let hang down; be relaxed, slackened, especially the hands: Don’t make an effort; don’t put forth exertion; don’t strive or try… leave matters with God without anxiety about the issue.”
Or maybe in contemporary lingo, we might say, “Oh, would you give it a rest?” That’s kind of what I wanted to say to that guy in the airport. “Sir, would you just stop already? Give it a rest!”
I'll be honest… lately, I’ve had to literally tell myself, “Joni, it’s time to relax… you don’t need to watch the Food Channel or Fox News… you don’t need to listen to the Nora Jones CD. Just give it a rest, be quiet, be still.” That’s what I’ve been saying to myself lately. And may I suggest the same for you? How about taking an hour—or if you can’t maybe just twenty minutes—to get outside and find that stillness in His creation today? You may not be near a desert or the mountains, but you can locate a place of quiet. A park where all you hear are birds chattering or the sound of a breeze in the trees (I went outside this morning, on the way to work. I heard that sound, the birds in the trees, all was quiet on my street, it was like heaven. I hadn’t heard that kind of quiet, that kind of beautiful stillness in so long). So, join me, friend. Today, take out the ear buds, shut down the iPod, put your cell phone on vibrate, take off the Bluetooth… and just be still. Then you’ll find out that He is the God above all silence.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
© Joni and Friends