There has been a statement rolling around in my head the past day or so that won’t leave. “Be still and know that I am God.” This is a verse in the Bible which can be found in Psalm 46:10. I have read this passage before and even heard a few messages about this text, but out of the blue yesterday it popped into my mind. Lately I have been wrestling with my thought life as we await the results of the PET scan. It’s hard waiting, especially when you are waiting for results that are pretty important. I have an appointment this Thursday with my oncologist, so we should know more by then. Even though we are only a few days away, I found myself struggling to remain positive. I haven’t had a lot of great news with my cancer diagnosis, so it is easy for me to think negatively rather than the way I know I should be thinking – positively. I keep obsessing over the future that I have absolutely no control over. I find myself daily wrestling with my thought life. As I sat on the couch yesterday and relaxed, I found myself becoming full of fear. I couldn’t turn it off. I laid my head down to get some rest, when all of a sudden the words, “be still and know I am God’ flooded my mind. It’s hard being still. I don’t usually do well when it comes to being still. I am always checking my phone, on my computer, or keeping busying by watching sports on the TV. How can you be still when your mind is consumed by all these negative thoughts? What do you do when you can’t seem to turn off the noise in your head? That’s the battle. Waging war against your thought life. I need to on a daily basis take my thoughts captive. Any time negative thoughts begin to bombard me, rather than mediating on them or allowing them to take up space in my mind, I need to start filling my mind with positive thoughts. One of the exercises I do is, remind myself about all the amazing things God has done on my behalf. I begin to make a mental note of all God has blessed me with, what He has done in my life so far and as I do this, the black clouds that fill my mind begin to lift. Being still before God doesn’t mean you stand at attention and don’t move a muscle. For me, being still is to focus my attention upon Him rather upon myself and my circumstances. The word ‘know’ in this verse in the original language means more than acquiring intellectual information about God. We are not to just know things about Him, we are invited to experience Him in tangible ways. As I lay on the couch, I began to change the way I was thinking because I was asking for God’s guidance in this situation. It didn’t happen immediately, but as I began to ask for help and I made a conscience decision not to focus my thoughts on things that were negative, my outlook began to change. I made an effort to be still before Him, so I could grow in my understanding of who He is and what His character is like. So my encouragement for anyone who may be reading this is, ‘be still and know that He is God.’
Sean
