Embracing Stillness: Trusting God in a Busy World

When you're looking for a gorilla, you often miss other unexpected events, and that's the Monkey Business illusion. Learn more about this illusion and the original gorilla experiment at theinvisiblegorrilla.com.

So you know, God's presence is always with us, and I wonder how many times we miss it because we're focused on other things. I think of Moses in the burning bush. Moses was taking his flock to the same spot, Mount Horeb, as he always did. And one day, he happened to stop and notice a burning bush. But I wonder how many times Moses walked by the burning bush and missed it. And I wonder the same for us. If we're so focused on different things, like counting the players wearing white, how many times do we miss the presence of God?

I'm not saying God is a gorilla, so miss that, but do we miss the presence of God? Now, if Moses had a cell phone and he was on Mount Horeb walking by the burning bush, I bet anything he would have missed it.

So I want us to wrestle with some "what if" questions today as we think about what this all means for our life. What if our constant busyness is preventing us from experiencing the peace and stillness that God desires to offer us? What if hurry sickness is actually robbing us of the joy and wonder of life? What if our obsession with productivity and efficiency is blinding us to the deeper meaning and purposes of our lives? And the last one, what if our hurry sickness is not only affecting our own well-being, but it's also impacting our ability to extend love and compassion to others?

The big idea for this first Sunday of the "Be Still" series focuses on the practice of stillness. The practice of stillness helps us to cultivate a deeper awareness of God's presence in our lives.

Our text is Psalm 46, and it was written by the sons of Korah. The sons of Korah were the temple musicians in the time of David, and they led worship and wrote worship songs. They were members of the tribe of Levi, but they had a backstory. There was a guy named Korah, and he was one of the ones in the golden calf fiasco. You remember that story, right? The golden calf was made, and Korah was one of the priests, and he and his followers ended up being swallowed by the Earth.

The sons of Korah have this backstory, but they maybe learned from some of their mistakes. They learned not to take things into their own hands like they did with the golden calf. They wrote this song, and it was sung around 700 BC, about 700 years before Jesus. And what was going on in Jerusalem at the time was that they were under siege by the Assyrians. The Assyrians had about 200,000 troops outside of Jerusalem, and it looked like they would fall just like every other nation and city in the surrounding area.

In the midst of this certain overcoming by the Assyrians, this song is being sung and prayers are being prayed. King Hezekiah and others were lifting up a Psalm of trust in the midst of very uncertain times. This nation, this group of people, will not be afraid. Even if the enemy is camped outside our city gates, we will not fear.

Many of us are going through tough times right now, and the question is, where do we put our trust? Are we willing to be still and put our trust in God, or are we wanting to take things into our own hands and try to fix it ourselves?

Israel had a history of taking things into their own hands and trying to fix things in their own strength, and it caused problems. The historical context of this psalm is a story of people in a time of trouble, using God as a metaphor for a fortress. God will protect them, be their stronghold, their tower, the one who defends them from their enemies.

Be still and know that God's got this. Don't try to fix it in your own strength. Trust, be still, stop, slow down, and trust that God's got this under control.

The word "be still" in Hebrew means to let go and cease striving. God is saying to Israel and to us today to let go, let go of our need to control, to cease striving, to stop moving towards a target that might not be the target God has for us.

To be still means to surrender control to God, to leave it in His hands, to surrender possession. It's like going on vacation, leaving the rush, the busyness, the hurry behind, and becoming aware of the presence of God in the stillness. It's not easy to let go and cease striving, but sometimes there are days where we get reminded of what's really happening to us and what God desires to do in us.

Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life in our day. It kills relationships, wisdom, health, joy, peace, creativity, and generosity. It kills our awareness of the Sacred all around us. We must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives because when we're rushing, we miss the burning bush. Even if it's for a good reason, we miss the presence of God in our midst.

Dallas Willard said, "Hurry is not of the devil, it is the devil." And Adrian Rogers said, "If Satan can't make you bad, he'll make you busy." We need to be still, trust, and know that God is with us.

The practice of stillness helps us cultivate a deeper awareness of God's presence in our lives. When we're busy, the practice of stillness helps us to cultivate a deeper awareness of God's presence in our lives.

This week, we should practice stillness, stop, slow down, and just be. God loves us for who we are, not for what we do. We are human beings, not human doings. Being still and knowing God is about surrendering control and trusting that God has everything under control.

Let's be on the lookout for yellow light moments, times to slow down, to be still, and to connect with God.