Be Still - Martin Wiles

Be still and know that I’m God. Psalm 46:10 NLT

Finally, I found peace.

Teaching sixty plus middle school students can tax anyone’s nerves, no matter how proficient a teacher you are. I, and they, anticipated spring break. Their attention spans had diminished more than normal. Things easily distracted them—and me.

And then there was the matter of having resigned one of my two full-time jobs. The people had spoken, silently, and sometimes not so silently. I knew my time to go had come, but knowing and doing didn’t stop the anxiety.

We needed a getaway—and we had planned one long before I planned to resign. My wife had purchased a large tent. One big enough to accommodate our full-size blow-up mattress along with all the other stuff she planned to take. My brother planned to come along. He needed a break too.

We made arrangements for someone to watch the grandboys, and Easter Sunday we headed for Devil’s Fork Campground in the mountains of Upstate South Carolina. When we pulled into our camping spot, I knew the next few days would relax us. From our spot, we could look out over Lake Jocassee. And that’s what we did for the few hours after our arrival.

“I’m more relaxed than I’ve been in a long time,” my wife remarked as we parked our bodies in our camp chairs. I shared her opinion, in spite of our tenuous life situation. The first night relaxed us even more. We listened as coyotes howled, Canadian geese honked, and Whippoorwills whippored.

Like the psalmist, our trip taught us once again to remain still and know God is God—regardless of our situation.

I’ve learned taking time to stay still before God is essential for my spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical health. But I sometimes get busy and forget. I tend to my physical health, my teaching responsibilities, and my writing details with great accountability—yet sometimes forget to consciously include God in the mix. 

Often, it takes my wife, or someone else, to remind me to be more aware of His presence with me and His guidance over my life. As my wife had to on our camping trip. I could have easily found something else to do during spring break, but I needed to be still and know God was God.

When life gets hectic, or even when it’s not, be still and let God be God.

Tweetable: Have you learned to be still?

Prayer: Father, forgive us for the time we forget to be still before you.

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