“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Psalm 46.10
I cleaned the porch last Saturday. I love my porch. My realtor, a wise and exceedingly patient women named Brytt, would have been hard-pressed to find another home for me once I saw the porch, the covered back porch. I’m sure she was relieved that the porch came with three bedrooms and a laundry room which were my stated “priorities” when our search began 11 summers ago. But once I saw the porch, I knew that was what I had been looking for. What would make this house my home. God was answering prayers I didn’t even know I had.
We’ve hosted friends on our back porch for conversations and for celebrations that spilled out into the back yard. One Christmas Day, teens wrapped in blankets over their winter coats enjoyed a card game marathon back there fueled by cocoa with lots of marshmallows. A few summers ago, I read through the Book of Romans with a daily online devotional every morning on the porch. We’ve eaten countless sandwiches and drank many cups of hot tea. I’ve laughed out loud, cried softly, and prayed tearfully. It is a welcoming but unpretentious spot. It is also dusty.
The last couple of years the porch has been mostly dusty and cobwebby, with things collected and then left there. Chairs and stools not often used except to collect things I set there “just for a minute” but never went back to carry to their proper place which sometimes should have been the trash can. In some ways the forlorn status of my beloved back porch reflects a season of busyness mixed with physical and emotional weariness or is it wariness? Of sometimes finding it easier, less confrontational, to be distracted by much than to be still and know.
“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Psalm 46.10
“Be still” in the Psalm can be translated “Cease striving.” I admit my thought is that “Be still” sounds like what a parent says to a wiggly child. “Cease striving” sounds, well, not wiggly-child-oriented. More like . . . “What you are doing is not working; let’s find another approach to what is on your heart and troubling your mind and limiting (or even stifling) any good and profitable actions.” The psalmist’s admonition to cease striving sounds like a wise warning, an instruction that should not be ignored like cobwebs and crusty-with-dried-mud shoes on the back porch. Because the longer we strive unproductively or strive to avoid the needed efforts, the harder it is to reclaim calm, focused, worthwhile knowing.
For me, the message of Romans 10.1-13 is a so-worthy “cease striving” message. Salvation isn’t earned by my strident efforts, even well-meaning. Salvation is available to me and to you only when we cease striving and instead rest fully in the hope and truth of the saving work of Christ for each believer. It’s that profound and that simple.
I feel like I’ve reclaimed my porch for it’s good and restful and then engaging purposes. It is time now to trust the next thing into the Lord’s work in my heart and mind. To be still and know.
As the striving ceases and the knowing is reclaimed there are few better words to claim than these …
“Be still, and know that I am God” . . . The LORD of hosts is with us . . . Psalm 46.10
For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Romans 10.13
Praying for some clearing of the cobwebs as you rest with assurance and know the Lord’s presence! Blessings, Colleen