“Be still and know that I am God…”
I’ve been still a lot lately. Too much probably! It goes with the silence that has dominated my life. Knowing the God part is a little trickier!
On the one hand, according to whoever wrote Psalm 46, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”
That’s pretty heady stuff keeping God busy all of the time. There are millions of us needing ever-present help when we’re in trouble and I don’t know about you but when mountains start falling into the middle of the ocean it means tidal waves and tsunamis and if I’m nearby, I’m getting scared!
Then whoever wrote this goes say that God is spending all of her time making wars cease, burning swords, shattering spears and breaking bows. I think God’s done a very decent job in this department as I don’t see many of swords, spears or bow and arrows into today’s wars but she won’t get an “A” in the ceasing war department. New ones are breaking out left and right!
Of course God may be on vacation. I wouldn’t blame her. I needed one myself.
Anyway after all of this preventing fear while causing tsunamis at the same time (no small trick!) and breaking swords and stuff while forgetting about machine guns and smart bombs, whoever wrote this gets to the end and like most great writers writes a great conclusion!
“Be still and know that I am God. I shall be exalted among the nations. I shall be exalted in the earth.”
So in the still silence of the beloved back deck I ponder these things. God seems to have two preferred ways of communication. There are all of these big picture things like making wars cease and flexing her muscle when she wants to make a mountain fall into the “middle of the ocean” says whoever wrote the Psalm.
God must have a great publicist! This is Hollywood type advertisements!
On the other hand God is a master of understatement!
Over this past year few years I’ve had heaps of trouble in my life … divorces, a major career change, empty nest syndrome, discovering that there are a fair number of people out there who have absolutely no use for me whatsoever, hair that keeps getting thinner and these splotches on my chest that came out of nowhere. Major issues!
So I’ve been trying to cash in the “God is my refuge and strength” part of this and while I would prefer an intimate face-to-face conversation God doesn’t seem to be too big on them.
Then the wind picks up from the ocean and the thousand shades of green dance in the sunshine. Goddess lays her head on my foot. The sun shines brighter and the warmth grows with each passing minute.
“Hmmm!” I say to myself.
“Hell is portable,” my friend Guy Sayles taught me one time, “you take it with you wherever you go.”
Meaning you can run but you can’t hide! Whatever problems we got are to be faced in the here and the now. Which is another point that whoever wrote this Psalm was trying to make…in spite of all of the stuff going on like wars, mountains falling in seas, divorces, job loses or changes, thinning hair and unexplained splotches … we’ve got this refuge.
It doesn’t mean running from our problems. It means running into them! Where God is waiting to do her stuff!
If Guy is right, and I believe that he is, then Love is also portable. We can make it wherever we are; with whoever we’re with! Stephen Stills was right! “Love the one you’re with!”
And love seems to have this way of minimizing hell, war, breakups, the need for refuge in the first place and the assholes who cause these things.
I remain on the love side of the things though I’ve done my fair share of trying to run from the hell in my life. But if love minimizes the hurts and the frustrations then I think that God is with the love.
Oh wait! I paid good money to learn that in Seminary! God IS love.
I hope I get an “A”.
