A collaboration between Lewis McLain & AI
Today is the 40th anniversary of a day I wish had not happened. We were overly involved in giving Marriage Encounter weekends, chairing the PTA in our school, being almost a full-time volunteer at a new church we were building, running a business and raising a teenager. I had worked on a church finance report at my office, went home at 2:30 am, and was on a 7 am flight for an all-day meeting in College Station. I got home that night and could not remember a single thing about the meeting or even flying. It was days before I could recover from a meltdown, not of anger but disgust with myself for trying to be everything for everybody.
I am stealing Linda’s favorite Bible verse today. She repeats it very often and has it placed in a prominent spot in our house. It has become one of my favs, too. She repeats it in common voice. I read it as BE STILL! And know that I am God.
“Be still, and know that I am God.” The sentence is short, balanced, almost deceptively simple. Yet for centuries it has carried the weight of wars, exile, fear, worship, and quiet trust. Found in Psalm 46, this line is not a gentle suggestion whispered to people lounging in peace. It is a command spoken into chaos.
Psalm 46 opens with motion and violence: the earth giving way, mountains falling into the sea, waters roaring and foaming, nations in uproar, kingdoms tottering. The psalmist piles instability upon instability until the world feels unmoored. Only then comes the command: Be still. In the original Hebrew, the phrase carries the sense of “cease,” “let go,” or even “drop your weapons.” It is not passive calm; it is the deliberate ending of frantic striving. God is not saying, “Relax, nothing matters.” He is saying, “Stop acting as though everything depends on you.”
That context matters. This verse is often lifted out and framed as a personal mantra for stress relief, and it certainly speaks to the anxious heart. But originally it is cosmic in scale. God addresses the nations themselves—armies, rulers, systems, and powers—telling them to stand down and recognize who truly governs history. Human noise does not unsettle Him. Political turbulence does not confuse Him. Natural disasters do not surprise Him. Stillness is not for God’s benefit; it is for ours, so that recognition can happen.
To “know” God here is not mere intellectual assent. In biblical language, knowing is relational and experiential. It is the difference between reading about fire and feeling its warmth. Stillness creates the conditions for that knowledge. When activity, argument, fear, and self-justification pause, awareness sharpens. The mind stops racing long enough to perceive what was already true: God is present, sovereign, and unthreatened.
The psalm balances this command with reassurance. Just a few verses earlier we read that God is “an ever-present help in trouble.” Stillness is not abandonment. It is trust enacted. It is the refusal to panic as a form of faith. The river that “makes glad the city of God” flows quietly even as nations rage. The contrast is intentional. God’s sustaining power does not roar; it endures.
Across Scripture, this pattern repeats. Stillness precedes revelation. Moses stands at the Red Sea with no visible escape. Elijah hears God not in wind or earthquake or fire, but in a low whisper. Jesus sleeps in a storm while seasoned fishermen panic, then rises and stills the waves with a word. In each case, divine authority is revealed not through frantic motion but through unshakable calm.
In modern life, stillness is countercultural. We reward speed, productivity, instant reaction, and constant commentary. Silence feels unproductive, even irresponsible. Yet Psalm 46 insists that some truths cannot be grasped while running. Knowing God requires space—space for listening, space for humility, space for surrender. Stillness becomes an act of resistance against the illusion of control.
The verse ends with a promise: “I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” God’s sovereignty is not fragile. It does not depend on our vigilance or anxiety. History bends toward His purposes whether we strain ourselves or rest in Him. Stillness does not delay His work; it aligns us with it.
“Be still, and know that I am God” is therefore both comfort and confrontation. It comforts the weary by lifting the burden of omnipotence from human shoulders. It confronts the proud by exposing how much noise we make to avoid surrender. In stillness, excuses fall away. What remains is God—present, powerful, and worthy of trust.
The strange irony is that the world does not become quieter when we obey this command. Wars may still rage. Markets may still swing. Illness may still come. But the soul grows anchored. Stillness does not change circumstances first; it changes perception. And with that change comes a steadiness that no external upheaval can easily steal.
In the end, the verse does not invite escape from reality. It invites deeper engagement with it—rooted not in fear or frenzy, but in the knowledge that God is God, and we are not.
A small confession: I was up until 2:30 this morning working on a project and loving it. Some of us never learn. LFM
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