This morning I read a seemingly random verse in Judges 2 that said, “So the king commanded his servants, “Be quiet!” and he sent them out of the room.” For some reason it brought me back to a time when I was a little girl. My brother and I were spending a summer week visiting our grandparents in a tiny, little town in southwestern Minnesota.
There wasn’t much to do in the sleepy city, so we would create our own fun. One day I remember sitting on an avocado green spinny chair while my brother spun me around ceaselessly. I was having so much fun laughing, yelling for him to stop and then begging him to continue that I didn’t hear my grandmother ask us to quiet down. This was probably nearing the end of our stay, because I will never forget the moment when my jolly-natured grandmother raised her voice just a tad saying, “Children! Will you please be quiet? I can’t even hear myself think!” This stopped us dead in our tracks because Grandma Fern was the happy-go-lucky grandma who lovingly called us her, “Funny Birds”. We immediately went outside and I pondered the phrase that left me a bit befuddled…”I can’t even hear myself think…”
As a mama, I have been in that place on many occasions…times when my guys had SO much energy that I said with a bit of exasperation, “All right, we are pushing pause on the pandemonium and y’all are running down to the stop sign and back four times. If the rambunctiousness continues, you can take it outside until dinner is ready!”
As a parent there have been SO many moments when I wanted to have the power like Jesus did when He silenced the wind and waves saying, “Peace! Be still!” (See Mark 4:39) What is kinda fascinating is that the phrase “Peace! Be still!” is so similar to the phrase that the king used when he silenced his people.
Both instances have the following meanings:
Keep silent
Be still
To hold one’s peace
One commentary says that describe a mental state that results in a manifestation of speechlessness and a refraining from labor.
Have you ever had a moment in your life where circumstances before you are clamoring so loud that much like my grandmother, you feel like you cannot hear yourself think? In those moments of difficulty, it is so easy to give airtime to the difficulty or worse yet, to bite the apple of offense rather than choosing to be still or hold one’s peace.
Have you ever wondered if our Father in heaven wishes to say the same thing to us? In the moments when the whirlwind of our lives create such a distraction from the fortress of our Father, do you ever wonder if He is whispering, “Peace! Be still!”, but much like my brother and me, we are so busy or so caught up in our words or the words of others that we just don’t hear Him? Perhaps if we heard Him, and chose to hold our Peace, the Person of Jesus, the wind and the waves of our circumstances would abate, and we would be able to experience His calm and hear His voice above the clamoring of all others? Wonder if we silenced the thoughts that so easily lead us to a place of fear and rather than trying to hear OURSELVES think, we choose instead to think upon the goodness of God, the faithfulness of our Father, the kindness of our King, the hovering counsel of the Holy Spirit?
All week long, I've had a song on repeat. It’s titled, “Be Still.”
The lyrics say:
I lift every fear to the heavens
Watch them disappear in your Presence
One by one they fall
Into perfect peace
You know everything yet you listen
Through my anxious thoughts
With compassion
One by one they fall into perfect peace
Your perfect peace
I will be still
I know that You are
Know that You are God
Father God, we DO know that You alone are God! Help us to choose Peace and to be still before You! We know that to be still means to hold our Peace. Jesus, help us to cling to you when things feel harried. Render us speechless when our voice clamors above your Truth. Help us to BE still and to remember that You ARE “still” – you are continual, the Alpha and Omega, You have, are and always be our steadfast Source of Truth! Jesus, have your way with our thoughts, calm the wind and the waves so that your Peace might prevail. We love you and are so thankful that you are our Rock who guides us!
"Be Still" by Amanda Cook