As your world crumbles around you… Stand still? When devastation blindsided you… Stand still? When your worst fears become real and break the levies to your hope… Stand still? Stand still. Stand still. Stand still !?!
? Stand ‘still’ …as the currents sweep you further and further away from your dreams, your life, your home… from peace and sanity. How? Someone please… tell me how? How do I still delight in taking notice in the colors of the world when the black and gray press deep within my soul? Do you know what you are asking of me at times? Do you know what is in that black and gray? How unspeakable it seems to be? How?
Where do we find such knowledge? Monks for years have mastered it. The Holy word is our manual in achieving it. Yet, even though we know where to find it… we continue fighting the current, race past the un-noticed beauty and then realize we’ve become too exhausted and too worn out to even give love to our loves. We are tired, burned out, drained and weary.
How did those before us stand up to the race of time… to find a way to live a life of harmony and peace (does that even exists)… to live a life conquered over pain and built stronger over the devastation? Must we be a saint to stand the test of time?
How? How do we “let go and let God“… to know that the crumbling moments are not all the moments? … That devastation does not have to take over, the fear turned into reality that just flooded your soul, are not all minutes in your day! Yes, oh, yes… their are awful moments… sometimes gross unspeakable moments… but even at that… they are not all your moments.
There is more…Oh, how there is so much more. More than to be drowned by the shattering mess of life, Stuck under the ruble, left hopeless by the devastation. And if this were not enough … let us not forget it’s all been tripled as the flood gates have been relentless. There seems to be no rest to regain just an ounce of strength.
Our spirits have been challenged in the darkness and pain… challenged to rise above, to become still, surrender our own will, relax, chill out perhaps. We for so long tend to deny ourselves the moments to enjoy the taste of life… ice cream… berries… and yes, even the tears that stream to our lips. We half take notice in the stories of our children… what about the spring mornings or the summer sunsets. The rain on a window pane or the star filled sky. How do we get it back… to know what we already know? Oh, dear self and friends, “stop doing it yourself”! Let the whispers of heaven guide us… listen to the voice of God… we must be still to hear for His wisdom. Too, we must not forget how God desires to carry our weak bodies across to a hiding place, where it is His love that shelters us from total devastation.
They’re moments in time that bring us to our knees, and then, there are moments in time that bring us to our knees. It is very different when we know where to go once we now know why we’re there. Remembering what God can do in the face of what we are unable to do, is being still… even when we are on our knees… especially when we are on our knees.
Remember, you’re (we’re) tired, hungry, weary, and worn out; yet we keep wanting to do it ourselves when we have nothing left to give? Why?
We need to know, what we know and if we just now know… we both must know, don’t draw back in faith in God. Stand still —not because of a self-made confidence, not because you are the most composed person in the face of disaster, not because “you’ve seen it all.” Be still because of what you know. Know it, not just intellectually, but sensibly, spiritually, and emotionally. He is your God. He is the ruler of kingdoms of this earth, the all-powerful Creator of the Universe. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble”. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth has and will challenge and test our faith; we shall endure the seemingly impossible moments because they are worth the fight for the ones that are too priceless…. as we often unnoticingly let them pass by… pass by because we forgot to be still and take notice of the colors in the midst of gray.
No need to be neither a saint nor a monk to learn how to meditate in the stillness of God… He has told us more than once in his Word… “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Even if it’s just for a moment… it is a moment worthwhile)
It is well with my soul!
The world may break the flesh
cloud my mind
depress the spirit
deceive my will to go on
but what they may never take
is the will of the Father that gives me the courage to be still… and know,
“It is well with my soul“
To read this post and hen listen to this song…. oh what a moment… a moment worthwhile;)
a quick history to this song…. it is heartbreaking beautiful! A man lost his son to death, then his business to a fire in the 1800′s… all his life savings gone… he sent his wife and daughters on a ship back home which then sunk and left only the wife to survive…. on his way back this is the words he wrote… in the midst of moments of devastation… of sorrow and a weary spirit… he was still and new the moment was not the only moments to be found…. it was well in his soul… there is where his Savior, God lied with it… “it is well with my soul”
