Be Still

Be Still

Pastor Jim May

Psalms 46:10 says, "Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth."

Be still! How many times have you said that to someone? In this life we are faced with activity all around us. We often refer to life itself as a “rat race”. In all of the activity and action that surround us, there is often found much confusion. Noises fill our ears, talking heads are everywhere and it seems that everyone has something that they want to get you to believe. The salesman wants to get your attention so you will buy his products. The politician wants to get your attention to convince you to vote for his agenda. There is just a never ending flood of information, noise and confusion that invade your life every day.

In the midst of all of this God says, “Be still, and know that I am God!”

We sing that chorus that says, “I want to know you more. In the quiet hour I wait only for you. In the stillness you are there.” But do we really know how to be still, to wait upon the Lord? We must learn to be still, to wait and to listen for the voice of the Lord and wait for the leading of the Holy Spirit. You’ll never know the voice of the Lord, and you will never walk in victory until you first learn to be still before God.

Elijah that great prophet of God was on the lamb. He was fleeing for his life because of wicked Queen Jezebel’s decree that he would die for his actions on Mt. Carmel. He destroyed her priests and defied her idol god and nothing in the world will make someone more angry than meddling in their religious beliefs and showing them that they aren’t right with God. It’s a love or hate thing. Either they will love you for showing them the error of their ways so they can get right with God, or they will rise up in anger because you disturbed their world.

Elijah was hiding in a cave, waiting for God to make the next move. He went from the great victory against the prophets of Baal, where God performed a great miracle and sent fire down out of Heaven, to sitting under a juniper tree having a pity party and contemplating suicide, or at least asking God to die. He had sank into a place of weakness, despair and defeat. That often happens after a great spiritual victory.

Let that be a lesson to us all. We should never do anything rash, or make any life changing decisions when we are in a state of depression. That’s your weakest moment and the best time that the devil can use your own state of mind to destroy your testimony.

Get alone with God; be still; listen for his voice and know that He is still God!

1 Kings 19:11-13, "And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?"

Just because there’s a lot of noise – doesn’t mean that God is in it! You can shout, swing from the rafters and make all kinds of noise in the flesh, but unless God is in it, it doesn’t mean a thing.

The Lord passed by and an “F5 tornado” ripped rocks right off of the mountain, but it wasn’t God that sent the wind. It was sent by Satan in an attempt to get the prophet to listen to the wrong voice again. In his weakened state, Elijah could have thought he heard God and stepped out only to be destroyed by the powers of hell.

Then the earth trembled and shook as Satan once again tried to convince the man of God that God was speaking. Let me give you a word of warning here concerning something that I hear all the time.

I hear people saying, “Well, if God wants me to go to a certain place or do a certain thing, then he will open the doors that need to open and close the doors that I shouldn’t walk through.” While there is some truth to that, let me tell you that you can’t always trust the “open doors” to be the right way because the devil knows how to open and close doors too.