Icebreaker Question:
When you were young, what were some things that you wanted to be when you
grew up?
Open With Prayer
Read Lesson and Bible Verses:
Psalm 46: 10: “Be still and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
That is one of my favorite verses. And it’s funny because when I was in high school, I went to a Christian retreat where that was the key verse for the week . . . and all I could think was, How boring! What a boring verse to pick to inspire, challenge, and “activate” the teens for Christ. Be still? Blah!
But now, this verse has
become so dear to me. It is one of my
top five. So I guess I’ve come full
circle. To me, this verse is all about
humility. A humble person is one who has
learned to trust in God’s goodness, love, and faithfulness so much that - despite
the storms that rage around - they can “be still” because God is God! A humble person desperately desires to be
near the Lord and to bask in His presence, and so they have learned the
importance of being physically and mentally still with the Lord at regular times. And a humble person also knows that everything
is about God’s glory! He will be
exalted!!!
Oh, I love this verse!!!
I
think one of the most important (and least developed) characteristics of a deep
relationship with God is learning to be still before Him.
But God shows us in His Word the
importance of getting away from distractions to spend time with Him.
Matthew
14:23: “After [Jesus] had dismissed them, he went up
on a mountainside by himself to pray.”
Spending time with God can happen in
prayer, Bible reading, taking walks and dwelling on His creation, reading godly
books, spending time talking about deeply spiritual things with others (where
two or three are gathered in His name, He is there in their midst.), having
coffee with God in the morning while you spend time thinking about Him and
talking to Him, keeping a “gratitude journal” where you regularly write down
things you are thankful for, etc. - whatever puts a pause on the daily,
rat-race events of life and centers your attention on God and growing closer to
Him and deeper in your faith. But it
means making a deliberate effort to get away from those daily tasks that keep
us busy and focused on life.
It’s amazing how many times I hear
people (myself included at times) say, “I would love to read the Bible every
day but I am just so busy. And I’m sure
God understands. I’m sure that He knows
I don’t want to fall asleep during prayer, but I am just so tired at the end of
the night.”
The main “job” of a Christian is to abide with God, to love Him more than anything else, to glorify Him . . . and yet meeting with Him is the last thing on our To Do list because “I’m sure He understands. He knows my intentions.”
But if we want to see real growth in
our spiritual lives and real peace, contentment, and joy in our daily lives, we
need to make daily meetings with God a real priority.
We need to set aside a certain
amount of time daily to meet with God in prayer and the Word. And we need to especially do this the busier and
more stressed we are.
Read the Word to meet God in it, not
just to check it off your To Do list.
Read it with these questions as
filters: What does it teach me about
God? What does it teach me about
myself? And how can I apply it to my
life today?
I,
for one, think it is best to read it in the morning, before your day
begins. It’s kinda like tithing. God asks for the first-fruits, the best of
what you have. And so it makes sense to
give Him the first-fruits of our day, too.
Give Him the best time, when you are fresh and receptive and not busy
with the next task at hand, instead of the snatches that are left over.
I think this is a general teaching
in the Bible, too.
Psalm
5:3: “In the morning, O Lord, You hear my voice; in
the morning I lay my requests before You and wait in expectation.”
Mark
1:35: “Very early in the morning, while it was still
dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he
prayed.”
This is not a hard and fast rule,
because there is not one right way to meet with God. We should be connecting with Him all day,
actually. But when it comes to a
set-aside Bible and prayer time, I think it’s best to give Him the best part of
our day. Not when we are exhausted or distracted,
but when we can really dig in deep to His Word and spend quality time in
prayer.
And there are those whose best time
may be in the evening or over lunch break.
The point is, meet God in the Word and in prayer daily. Make it a priority. The Bible is God’s absolute Truth, the
revealed wisdom and Will and guidebook of God.
Here is a challenge, if you really
think that you are too busy to read the Bible:
Take stock of your day and see how many wasted moments there are. Moments that you are waiting in line or on
the train or in the car (as a passenger, of course.) Could you bring a pocket Bible with you to
read during these times?
Or think about all the time you
spend doing worthless, unproductive, and possibly unglorifying things. Give serious thought to how you spend your
time. What TV shows do you watch? What books or magazines do you read? What kind of web-surfing or texting do you
do? How about hobbies? Would your time be better spent in the Word?
Do you know that if we watch a
one-hour television show every day for a year, we’ve just spent 21,900 minutes
filling our heads with unnecessary, temporary (most likely unglorifying)
stuff?
But setting aside fifteen minutes every day to read the Bible is too much for our schedules!?!
In one year, that would be just 5,475 minutes. 5,475 minutes out of 525,600 minutes for an entire year. Replace one half-hour show (or a half-hour on the phone or internet) with the Bible and you would be spending 10,950 minutes a year getting to know God. I can’t think of a better use of nearly 11,000 minutes! 11,000 minutes investing in your relationship with God!
2. Be mentally still so that you can set your mind on God and be receptive to Him.
This can happen even while you are busy
doing others things. I have found that
some of my most productive, reflective times are when I am busy doing the
dishes. Most of the time, I will be
playing out some stupid daydream in my head or mulling over some concern when
it dawns on me to spend this time praying or focused on God. And as soon as I switch my thoughts to God
and begin listening to the Spirit, I find that all sorts of godly “lessons”
come to mind. But I would not have heard
them if I didn’t quiet my mind and listen.
Psalm
4:4: “. . . search your hearts and be silent.”
Be warned, however, that trying too
hard to listen for God can be a pitfall sometimes, a way of failing to “be
still.”
As a first-born,
over-achieving perfectionist, I never really rest emotionally. I always feel like I can’t do enough or like
I have to do better. I am never
satisfied with myself or my efforts. (I
didn’t always used to be this way. Maybe
I did . . . I don’t know. I used to
rewrite full pages of notes if one word looked a little sloppy.)
I’m not good at being
still. I am too busy trying to keep all
balls up in the air so that nothing falls apart on my watch. And I can never simply relax. Because when I do, I feel like I am wasting
time or failing at something or like everything is going to crash down around
me. Like I don’t deserve to rest because
things are still crooked in my life. And
I can’t rest until they are straight. In
many ways, I expect too much out of myself.
And in some ways, I
think I expect too much out of God, too.
I expect Him to show Himself in great ways, instead of in the many
little ways that He so often does. I
expect Him to speak to me regularly, instead of through the silence that so
often comes. I expect Him to answer
prayers the way I think He should, especially when I am trying so hard to
follow biblical principles on prayer and righteous living. And I expect Him to fix so many of the
problems that I have and to spare me certain pain, instead of accepting that
it’s more likely that He will walk with me through the pain and teach me
through it.
And I expect Him to
always be just beyond my grasp and to be just unpleased with me enough that I
have to keep working to make myself better before He will really accept me and
meet with me. In my relationship with
Him, I am always pursuing. Always
seeking biblical truths and trying to apply them. Desperately trying to pray as effectively as
I can. Always trying to listen. Always waiting for Him to talk. Always hanging in there, hoping for answers
to prayers that don’t seem to be coming.
Always polishing myself up, developing my trust in Him, and examining my
heart and mind, looking for obstacles between us. Always striving. Always trying. Always working so dang hard.
And, yes, this can be
good in some ways. But it becomes
unhealthy when all I do is strive and pursue, without being able to “be still
and know that He is God.” I miss the
forest when I am too busy analyzing the trees all day. I miss out on enjoying God now when I think
that I have to always make my life and my faith better before I can really have
a good relationship with Him. Does this
make any sense?
I think it is possible
to put so much pressure on ourselves to “run harder after God” that we fail to
find God in the here-and-now. We fail to
find Him in the life we have now because we are too busy trying to make our
lives – our faith - something different.
Too busy trying to polish ourselves up and make ourselves more
presentable and pleasing. Too busy
trying to find Him – when He has been right here all along.
We can’t enjoy a rose or
a rainbow when we are so busy trying to analyze it and find ways to make it
better. And this is what I do with God
sometimes. I analyze and evaluate
everything in my relationship with Him, trying so hard to do “better” in my
faith, that I fail to simply enjoy Him now.
To rest in His arms.
Now don’t get me
wrong. It’s great and essential to
mature in our faith, to improve our relationship with God. And most of us need to spend more time doing
this. And all of us need to do it
regularly throughout our lives. But
sometimes, when we work so hard yet still find ourselves getting really
discouraged with life and faith and our pathetic selves, we may just need to
stop trying so hard and simply “be still,” let our minds rest, and enjoy God in
the here-and-now.
Another part of being mentally still
for me is that sometimes I need to stop talking, stop praying even, and just
“be” in His presence. When I notice that
prayer is just working me up more or making me think about all that’s wrong in
life or I feel like God is so far away that He isn’t even listening, sometimes
I just need to stop and shut my mouth and dwell. I
need to stop “doing” and to start “being.”
You know, I was
listening to a story about someone who set aside a whole weekend for prayer. And he said that he was able to pray for a
couple hours before he had nothing else to say.
And he was discouraged and felt like a failure because he couldn’t pray
for two days. The advice he was given
was to bring some friends with him so he could pray with others, because they
could help inspire each other to keep talking to God.
And that’s a good
idea. But I had a different answer in
mind. If I had the chance, I would have
told him that prayer is about talking, of course, but it’s not all about the
talking. It’s also about listening and
meditating on God. It’s about enjoying
and resting in His presence. It’s about
tuning into the quiet instead of fighting it, and about letting God speak
through it. It’s about being open to
whatever He may want to tell you.
Sometimes, it’s about not talking and not trying, and instead it’s about simply being quiet before the
Lord, about waiting for Him to move in His time instead of feeling like it’s
our responsibility to force something.
Sometimes there are things we can only learn in the silence. And it might be time to stop trying and stop
talking, to simply kneel before Him in reverence and humility and sweet admiration
and say nothing.
“But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all
the earth be silent before him.” (Habakkuk 2:20)
“Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be
hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let
your words be few.” (Ecc. 5:2)
[And for the record, I am not talking about some sort of New Age meditation or about completely emptying your head. Emptying your head is a dangerous thing, allowing room for evil to come in. I am talking about turning your thoughts to God, about spending time with Him, talking to Him, abiding in Him, letting His Word and truths work in your heart and mind, and about listening for the things the Holy Spirit wants to say to you.
If we are not careful and discerning, if we completely empty our heads and let any old thing in, it can lead to "hearing" messages that are not from Him! Because we want so badly to hear something, anything, or we just want to hear what we want to hear. That's why it's so important to know God's Word. God's Word is the measuring stick that we judge all other messages by. God won't tell us to do anything that contradicts His Word.
Now .. I know that some Christians get freaked out when people say that we can "hear" from God today. They think we are trying to add to the Bible. But when I say that we can still listen for God to speak to us today, I am not saying He will give us new doctrinal truths. I am saying that He can help guide us in the details of how to live out His biblical truths in our own lives, in our own particular situations. He can lead us to figure out how to bring Him glory in our own particular circumstances. He can lead us to know what sins we need to seek forgiveness for, which areas of weakness we need to be cautious about, how to be discerning about the things we are hearing from others, which decision we should make when we are faced with multiple options, which Bible verse speaks to our current need or dilemma, etc.
So, for the record, God will never give us new doctrinal truths or "truths" that replace His written Word. But He will guide us in how to live out His written Word in our own lives, if we are willing to seek Him, to listen and obey.]
3. Being still also means trusting God.
It means to have a deep sense of
trust in Him so that we can rest in Him, being concerned only with our
obedience and letting Him be concerned with the obstacles, problems, timing,
and results.
But we can’t really be still before someone if we don’t trust them or trust their love for us. And we can’t really trust them if we don’t really know them. This is why I believe that it is so critical for us to sort out our misconceptions about God and our self-protective walls and fears. (Which we talked about earlier.)
And trust is also a part
of knowing that God helps us in life, that we are not alone and that everything
doesn’t rest on our shoulders. We don’t
have to carry the weight of the world because God does. And God carries us as we carry our
burdens.
I give in too easily to
the feeling that I have to “do it all,” and that I will always fail at doing it
all. And it regularly leads to a kind of
depression. Satan seems to get to me
best not with a bold, frontal assault, but by quietly standing beside me and
simply whispering in my ear, “Oops, you see that burden there. You dropped it. Better pick it up again. . . . What about
this new concern or problem? You better
hold tightly onto that. After all, if
you don’t worry about it and try to fix it, who will? . . . Better not relax
yet. Things go wrong when you relax . .
. You really messed up again, didn’t you?
That’s typical! . . . You’re on your own. There’s no one that really cares. . . . Maybe
if you just try a little bit harder . . .”
But do I live like He is?
Lately, life feels like I’m falling
down a deep hole, struggling to grab onto something on the sides for
support. To catch myself from hitting
bottom. To find something that I can use
to pull myself back up to the top where the fresh air is. Where life is.
But I’m tired of frantically
struggling and grabbing. And if falling
is what I am supposed to be doing, then I am just going to keep falling until
He catches me. I’m just going to stop
struggling and I am just going to relax into the fall. And I’m going to trust that when I hit
bottom, His hands will be there, waiting to catch me.
I have tried and tried to make my
hope and faith strong enough to hold me up, but now I really just need God to
hold me. And so I’m going to keep
falling until He catches me. And my
simple prayer is going to be, “Lord, I don’t know what else I need. I just know that I need You. Catch me, hold me, and help me come alive
again. Just help me!”
And so I’m just going to hunker down
in life as it is, nestled up in the Lord’s hands, and let Him carry me through
it. In His time and in His way. I’m going to grab on like Jacob and cling to
Him until He blesses me. I am going to
set my mind on Him, not asking for things I want as much as just resting from
the uphill climb of life, resting in His presence.
My problems will still be there
later and I can go back to dwelling on them then, if I want to. But for now, I just need a break. I just need to fall. I just need to be still and find out that He
is God!
Have you ever thought about how worry is really just shrinking God? It's reducing Him to a weakling who can't handle our concerns, to an uninvolved and apathetic God who doesn't care about what we're going through. It's stealing God's glory, acting like we can do better, like we care more about things than He does, like we are wiser or more capable than He is, like we have to handle it ourselves because God can't be trusted to handle it.
But what was it that Moses told the
Israelites when they were freaking out as Pharaoh’s army cornered them against
the Red Sea?
“Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance
the Lord will bring you today. The
Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to
be still.” (Exodus
14:13-14)
Be still! They only had to be still. Stand firm - firm in their faith that God
would handle it. And the Lord would do
the fighting.
As long as the Israelites trusted
and simply stood still and firm in the Lord, they were safe. And God would be glorified! It was in His hands all along, even if they
couldn’t see it. This encourages my soul.
I don’t see the big picture, but I don’t have to see the big
picture. Because I can trust that God
does. I don’t have to carry the weight
of the world on my shoulders because that’s God’s job. I don’t always know how to handle things, but
God does and He will straighten out my path as I abide in Him. And when I run out of strength and need to
just rest for awhile, that’s okay because God is strong enough for both of
us.
My job is just to fall on Him in
trust and humility, to admit that I can’t do it on my own and that I need Him,
and to remain still in Him, firm in my faith.
“But those who hope in the Lord will
renew their strength. They will soar on
wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be
faint.” (Isaiah
40:31)
Our hope is in Him. Not in getting our way or getting out of the
trial or in being able to “do it all” or in finding what we are looking for in
something else. Our hope is in Him! And as we hope in Him – as we wait on Him and
trust Him with our situation and trust that He will make our paths straight,
make all wrongs right, and eventually make something beautiful out of our messy
life – we will find the strength to face each day, each trial.
But hoping in Him doesn’t include
excessively worrying over our circumstances, groaning about the trials, trying
to make things happen in our own strength, trying to force God to answer or
move before it is time, focusing on the negatives and the impossibilities and
all the things we want but don’t have or have but don’t want. That only saps our strength, a little every
day. And it gives the devil more of a
foothold in our lives.
But learning to find our hope in Him
(and I do mean learning because it is
a process of letting go, learning to trust, and changing our thinking) will
bring a certain deep assurance that He is still on the throne, even if life is
still messy. It will bring a stillness,
even in the midst of storms. It will
bring contentment and peace, even when things are not the way we want them to
be. It will bring joy in Him, even if we
are not necessarily “happy.” It will
help us learn to walk by faith, to live in reverent fear of the Lord, and to
trust Him in genuine humility, allowing Him to be God in our lives.
We are right where we need to be as
long as we are in His arms and walking in daily obedience under His guidance
and putting our faith and hope in Him as we grow closer to Him through His Word
and prayer. He will handle each day for
us. He will carry us while we carry the
burdens He gave us.
“Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet
inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal
glory that far outweighs them all.” (2 Cor.
4:16-17)
4. Being still also implies waiting for Him to move in His time and in His way.
When life is messy and we have
concerns that we have prayed about and we have done all that we know He has
called us to do and we are abiding in Him, then our job becomes to just “be
still” and keep living the life we have and wait for God to move and to guide
us in His time and way. We cannot force
His answers. We have to wait for them in
trust.
Psalm
37:7: “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently
for him . . .”
Let’s take a look at a passage which
I love. Genesis
12. In the first verse, God says to Abraham, “Leave your country .
. . and go to the land I will show you.”
He basically tells
Abraham to step out in blind faith.
First he is to leave his home, and then eventually God will show him the
land he is to go to.
But for me, so often in my life, I
want to see the map ahead of time, before I decide if I want to go or not. I want to know the exact route I am supposed
to take, the place I’ll end up, the rewards that I’ll get for the effort, and I
want the answers to my prayers when I want them. I don’t like to wait too long for these
things.
But that’s not how God works.
God’s way is to call us to go before
we have any idea where we are going, to show us one step at a time, to give us
trials before we have any idea what He wants us to learn through them, and to
answer slowly, even if we want fast, immediate results.
And we learn as we go, as we rely on
Him and draw closer to Him during the journey.
He does not tell us His plans ahead of time. But our faith deepens and grows as we walk
the twist and turns, the hills and valleys, the dead-ends and turn-arounds with Him.
We may not know where He is taking
us, but He does. Our job is not to know
ahead of time. Our job is just to walk
with Him. And eventually, we’ll find
ourselves in the place that He wants us to be.
If we are obedient and listen to Him and follow where He leads.
It’s not easy - learning to walk by
faith. In fact, it’s a life-long journey
and one that I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand or do perfectly. But I keep trying, learning through each failure
and trial and stumble and victory.
One thing that we need to remember
on this journey of faith is that God has His own timetable. And things usually take a lot longer than we
want them to. Look at the blessing that
God promises Abraham in verses 2-3. Very
early on (well, when Abraham was seventy-five years old) God gave him the
promise of a son. But Isaac wasn’t born
for 25 years, not until Abraham was about a hundred.
Twenty-five years of waiting for
what God said He was going to do!
I don’t know if I’d be able to hang
in there for more than a few months. I
can begin to lose faith pretty quickly if things don’t happen as I thought they
were going to. But to wait 25 years,
hearing over and over that the blessing was going to come? I don’t know . . . I think I’d begin to
wonder. To doubt.
But waiting, I think, is one of the
greatest testers and refiners of our faith.
It’s during these times that all sorts of things come to the surface:
sins, fears, doubts, walls, self-sufficient ways, less-than-godly
characteristics.
Long waits are when we exhaust our
own wisdom and our own attempts to make things work. Long waits purify our desires and
priorities. Long waits cause us to
decide if we will “play God” in our lives or if we will fall down at the Lord’s
feet in humility and say, “I need You, Lord.
I can’t do this on my own anymore.
No matter what happens, I just need You and I want to glorify You. Not my will, but Yours be done.”
And I think this is why God lets us
wait sometimes, way longer than we are comfortable with.
When we panic during the long waits
– when we fear and doubt and try to take matters into our own hands - we create
consequences for ourselves and others that God never intended. And when we are tempted to do this, we should
seek comfort from godly friends, hit our knees in prayer, and open the Word,
seeking the wisdom and comfort and strength that God is so willing to
provide.
He may expect us to wait a long time for His promise to be fulfilled, but He doesn’t expect us to wait alone. We can wait with Him in faith and learn the painful, wonderful lessons that we can only learn on the journey. We can be still because He is God. And once you start to really understand who He is and His love and goodness and power and majesty, that should be good enough for us.
If there is one thing that I am
learning as I get older, it’s this: “It’s
all about the journey, not about the destination.”
Now, of course, ultimately it really
is about the destination – our
eternal destination. But the journey
that we take in this life is what builds up our eternal destination, our
eternal home. God’s kingdom. And I think God is more about maturing our
faith on the journey than He is about getting us quickly to the
destination.
As God said to Abraham, “I will show you.”
Not “I am showing you first so that you
can decide what you want to do” or “Here’s the path, all written up so you know
all the steps.”
It’s “I will show you, as you go forward on your journey. But you have to step out in trust. I will reveal the next turn when it is
time. Just keep walking with Me, one
step at a time.”
God basically asked Abraham, “Will
you trust Me enough to go forward into the unknown?”
And this is what He asks us,
too. Regularly. Not knowing is part of the journey. Not knowing is what builds our godly
character, humility, and faith.
Whether God says “Stop” or “Go,”
“Yes” or “No,” we need to decide if we trust Him enough to let Him do things in
His time and in His way and if we are willing to leave the unknown up to
Him. And we shouldn’t wait until our
faith grows before we do this . . . because it’s by doing this that our faith
grows.
Do only what He tells you to do
through the Word and through prayer, and then wait on Him for the answer.
Admittedly, this is not easy to
do. Because I would venture to say that
most of us have trouble with the whole “trust others” thing. And painful trials and waits will dredge up
every last bit of fear and doubt that live deep in our hearts and minds.
We also struggle with waiting
because we are a “microwave society.” We
expect fast, quick results for everything we do. And sometimes, God moves way too slow for
us. But if we can’t make Him go faster
(which we can’t), then we need to learn to go slower, to wait for His
timing.
Looking back on my
spiritual journey so far, I know that extended periods of God’s silence always
precede (and lead to) deeper spiritual growth and spiritual blessings and
greater spiritual tasks and responsibilities.
And so I am not afraid of the silence anymore. And I am learning to be okay with the
waiting. (Always learning!) I know that these dry times and these long
waits are necessary parts of spiritual growth.
And I am learning to wait not in discouragement, but in expectation that
God will move again soon, that there is something important to be learned in
all this. (And I’ll be honest, sometimes
I do fall into discouragement, too.
Which you’ll see later in the “Is Depression a Sin?” lesson.)
Failing to Be Still
What are some ways
that we fail to “be still”?
- When we complain and grumble about
our circumstances.
- When we panic or worry over things
we don’t know or don’t have any control over, instead of running to the Lord.
- When we avoid quieting our minds,
possibly because we are afraid of what will come up or we are afraid to let go
of control over our circumstances or we are running from the Holy Spirit.
- When we use our own strength and wisdom to force something to happen, instead of going to God about it.
- When we are so busy doing for Him that we fail at being with Him.
- When we use prayer as a way to
manipulate God into doing what we want or as a way to dwell on our problems,
getting ourselves all worked up and missing out on that “peace of God, which surpasses all understanding”? (I
believe we miss out on that peace when we fail to offer our prayers with thanksgiving, as the verse says we
are to do.)
- When we let life pull us away from
spending time with God.
- When we think that He is always just
outside of our grasp. And so we keep
trying to run after Him harder, pursue Him more, and try to impress Him more so
that He draws near to us, and yet we fail at finding Him (letting Him meet us)
in the here-and-now.
- When we are hasty or impatient and
do not wait on God to answer or move in His time and in His way.
- When we are filled with envy and
greed, always wanting more and never being content with the blessings God gave
us.
- When we try to take on too much,
carry too many burdens, instead of just doing the job that God asked us to do today.
Being still - physically, mentally, in trust, and in waiting - is important for the health of our spiritual and physical lives. Being still is the only way we will learn to discern His whisper. He will not shout His messages, but He whispers (as seen in 1 Kings 19:12). And those who “have ears to hear” will hear Him.
If we rush our prayers, we usually
end up just presenting a big list of “wants.”
But we neglect listening to Him and we don’t hear what He wants from us
and for us. (Which, sadly enough, is
probably quite acceptable to some of us.)
Cultivating stillness is important in learning to hear His challenges,
convictions, insights, and calls - through prayer and the Word.
And if we rush our Bible reading, we
won’t absorb it or let it fill our hearts with what the Holy Spirit wants to
tell us through it. It will be just a
chore to check off. “Bible Reading . . .
Check!” We need to be able to be still
with God’s Word, letting it transform our hearts and minds.
And if we rush through our days, we will miss out on so many of His simple blessings and wonders. Those things which draw our hearts and minds back to Him and make our hearts swell with praise. (And we can have still bodies but busy minds, failing to see the blessings of the moment.)
And when we can’t be still in trust
and in waiting, we are tempted to panic and to take matters into our own
hands. This creates consequences that
would never have happened if we had waited on God.
Now, of course, we can’t force
ourselves to feel trusting until we get to the source of why we don’t
trust. But we can force ourselves to
obey! And if we have a hard time being
obedient, we should at least talk to God about it and always stay
transparent. He will bless our honesty
and our obedience, even if we don’t feel like doing it.
We are not a people that are used to
being still, especially when “time is money.”
But I think that God highly values the ability to be still because that
is when we tune into Him. That is when
we learn that He is God!
“God won’t give you more than you
can handle.”
But guess what?
It’s not true.
“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered . . . We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we even despaired of life. Indeed, in our hearts, we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)
We tell each other, “Don’t
worry. God won’t give you more than you
can bear. You can handle this.”
And we try our best to fix it or
make it work. We want to show God what
good, strong, capable Christians we are, as we try to bear up under the heavy
load He has placed on our backs. And we
trudge along, painful step after painful step, with a grin plastered on our
faces so that we don’t disappoint Him.
But eventually, we begin to despair,
the load becomes too heavy, and we falter.
But we dig down deep and find a little more strength to carry on because
“By golly, I am going to show God what a faithful Christian I am!” And we keep going, as the grin turns to a
grimace.
But eventually, after carrying that
burden far too long and using up all of our strength and wisdom and stamina, we
collapse in a heap. We drop the burden
and fall down and curl up in a ball, berating ourselves for being such a
failure and disappointment.
And we expect to hear God say, “You
weakling. I gave you a burden, and you
couldn’t handle it, could you? What kind
of Christian are you?”
But if you stop listening to those
thoughts from your own head and from the Evil One, you will hear God’s
voice.
And He says, “Finally!”
“Finally, you are right where you
should be, where you should have been from the beginning. Because when you fell, you fell into My
arms. You were never meant to carry this
burden alone. It’s too heavy for
you. You were always meant to fall on Me
and let Me carry you while you carry it.”
So why do we put this pressure on ourselves to handle it all? Why do we keep thinking that God will never send a burden we can’t bear, so we better be able to handle every circumstance we encounter? Why do we keep trying to keep all the balls up in the air, not even allowing ourselves the time to do nothing more than simply stop and smell the roses and thank God for them? Always running, always struggling, always striving?
The thing is, I don’t see any verses like that in the Bible. I don’t see any that say, “Thou shall always be strong enough to carry thy burdens, without any outside help. Thou shall run and run and run all day, keeping busy accomplishing and doing and striving. By this, you show yourself to be a faithful, capable servant of God.”
Instead, I see this:
“Come to me, all you who are weary
and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in
heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew
11:28-30)
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under
God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxieties on him because he
cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:6-7)
“Be still and know that I am God; I will be
exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm
46: 10)
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in
everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to
God. And the peace of God, which
transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ
Jesus.” (Philippians
4:6-7)
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and
lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and he
will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)
“The sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm
51:17)
“I am the vine; you are the
branches. If a man remains in me and I
in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
As 2 Cor. 1:8-9 shows us, life will be too much for us to bear alone. God gives us more than we can handle. We will indeed face things that are beyond our ability to handle, that will make us want to roll over and give up and die. It’s how God teaches us to run to Him, to fall on Him, to need Him, to rest in Him, to be still and know that He is God.
When we face situations that are
beyond our ability, the best thing we can do is to stop acting like we can do
it all, like we have to do it all, and to admit our helplessness to the
Lord. Stop running and striving and
trying. Fall at His feet in humility and
fall into His arms, trusting that He is big enough. We were never meant to carry those burdens
alone. We were never meant to be strong
enough. We were always meant to be too
weak to do it on our own.
I think that a toddler shows they
are growing up when they get to the point where they can say, “I know what I’m
doing. I do it myself. I’m strong enough and I don’t need your help.”
But an adult – a Christian - shows
that they are growing up when they get to the point where they can say, “I
don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t do it
myself. I’m weak and I need Your help!”
We need God. We need to be spending time with God
regularly in order to get to know Him better, to find out how He sees us, to
have our faith strengthened and to see it grow, to find contentment, peace,
wisdom, and joy in Him. And that can’t
happen when we neglect meeting with God regularly. It can’t happen when we are casual and lazy
about “abiding in Him.”
So what burdens are you bravely
trying to carry when you should really be admitting your weakness and falling
down on Him? What races are you busy
running all day when you should be stopping and simply enjoying the presence of
our good, strong, heavenly Father? Where
are you “too busy” when you should just “be still”?
Bible Verses:
“Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still.” (Exodus 14:13-14)
“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. . .” (Psalm 37:7)
“But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.” (Habakkuk 2:20)
“Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.” (Ecc. 5:2)
“. . . search your hearts and be silent.” (Psalm 4:4)
Questions:
1. Did this topic trigger any thoughts you want to share? Any Bible verses you want to bring up?
2. Can you think of other ways that we can “be still”? How would you explain what “being still” means? And why does God want us to learn to do this?
16. Do you agree with me that it is possible to “pursue God too much, to run too hard after Him”? Have you ever experienced this?
25. Ephesians 5:17, 18 says, “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. . . . be filled with the Spirit.”
How can we be “filled with the Spirit”?
What are some effects of this, evidence of it? And is it a “one time” thing or a regular
thing?
26. How can you tell if someone (yourself) is not filled with the Spirit? What gets in the way of “being filled”? And what are some wrong reasons and some right reasons why we might seek to be filled with the Spirit?
28. Are there any other thoughts or questions that you want to add?
Open With Prayer
Read Lesson and Bible Verses:
That is one of my favorite verses. And it’s funny because when I was in high school, I went to a Christian retreat where that was the key verse for the week . . . and all I could think was, How boring! What a boring verse to pick to inspire, challenge, and “activate” the teens for Christ. Be still? Blah!
Now, “be still” is a very short
sentence, but it has very big meanings.
And I think that there are at least four different ways to “be still,”
and all are equally important. (And they
overlap in ways.)
1. Be physically still and spend time with God.
The problem here is simply that we
won’t slow down enough to be still enough to do anything. We are an over-achieving, constantly-moving
group of people. And even when we are
not moving, we are busy filling our time and minds with anything else but
God. TV, gossip, friends, work, hobbies,
social networking, etc.The main “job” of a Christian is to abide with God, to love Him more than anything else, to glorify Him . . . and yet meeting with Him is the last thing on our To Do list because “I’m sure He understands. He knows my intentions.”
But setting aside fifteen minutes every day to read the Bible is too much for our schedules!?!
In one year, that would be just 5,475 minutes. 5,475 minutes out of 525,600 minutes for an entire year. Replace one half-hour show (or a half-hour on the phone or internet) with the Bible and you would be spending 10,950 minutes a year getting to know God. I can’t think of a better use of nearly 11,000 minutes! 11,000 minutes investing in your relationship with God!
2. Be mentally still so that you can set your mind on God and be receptive to Him.
[And for the record, I am not talking about some sort of New Age meditation or about completely emptying your head. Emptying your head is a dangerous thing, allowing room for evil to come in. I am talking about turning your thoughts to God, about spending time with Him, talking to Him, abiding in Him, letting His Word and truths work in your heart and mind, and about listening for the things the Holy Spirit wants to say to you.
If we are not careful and discerning, if we completely empty our heads and let any old thing in, it can lead to "hearing" messages that are not from Him! Because we want so badly to hear something, anything, or we just want to hear what we want to hear. That's why it's so important to know God's Word. God's Word is the measuring stick that we judge all other messages by. God won't tell us to do anything that contradicts His Word.
Now .. I know that some Christians get freaked out when people say that we can "hear" from God today. They think we are trying to add to the Bible. But when I say that we can still listen for God to speak to us today, I am not saying He will give us new doctrinal truths. I am saying that He can help guide us in the details of how to live out His biblical truths in our own lives, in our own particular situations. He can lead us to figure out how to bring Him glory in our own particular circumstances. He can lead us to know what sins we need to seek forgiveness for, which areas of weakness we need to be cautious about, how to be discerning about the things we are hearing from others, which decision we should make when we are faced with multiple options, which Bible verse speaks to our current need or dilemma, etc.
So, for the record, God will never give us new doctrinal truths or "truths" that replace His written Word. But He will guide us in how to live out His written Word in our own lives, if we are willing to seek Him, to listen and obey.]
3. Being still also means trusting God.
But we can’t really be still before someone if we don’t trust them or trust their love for us. And we can’t really trust them if we don’t really know them. This is why I believe that it is so critical for us to sort out our misconceptions about God and our self-protective walls and fears. (Which we talked about earlier.)
But God says, “Be still.”
So many times I just need to be
still.
When my spirit hasn’t been still for
a long time, I start to exhaust myself, to run on empty. Of course, I need to keep praying and reading
my Bible daily. I desperately need those
things because life is too hard for me to bear alone. But I am learning that, many times, I need to
stop frantically trying to make everything “better,” to do “more,” or to
accomplish it all, and I need to just be still and trust that God will handle
what I can’t. He is big enough!Have you ever thought about how worry is really just shrinking God? It's reducing Him to a weakling who can't handle our concerns, to an uninvolved and apathetic God who doesn't care about what we're going through. It's stealing God's glory, acting like we can do better, like we care more about things than He does, like we are wiser or more capable than He is, like we have to handle it ourselves because God can't be trusted to handle it.
4. Being still also implies waiting for Him to move in His time and in His way.
He may expect us to wait a long time for His promise to be fulfilled, but He doesn’t expect us to wait alone. We can wait with Him in faith and learn the painful, wonderful lessons that we can only learn on the journey. We can be still because He is God. And once you start to really understand who He is and His love and goodness and power and majesty, that should be good enough for us.
Failing to Be Still
- When we use our own strength and wisdom to force something to happen, instead of going to God about it.
Being still - physically, mentally, in trust, and in waiting - is important for the health of our spiritual and physical lives. Being still is the only way we will learn to discern His whisper. He will not shout His messages, but He whispers (as seen in 1 Kings 19:12). And those who “have ears to hear” will hear Him.
And if we rush through our days, we will miss out on so many of His simple blessings and wonders. Those things which draw our hearts and minds back to Him and make our hearts swell with praise. (And we can have still bodies but busy minds, failing to see the blessings of the moment.)
Trials and Burdens
Here’s a question: What is it that we always say to encourage
people who are going through a hard time or struggling with too much to do, too
many burdens?“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered . . . We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we even despaired of life. Indeed, in our hearts, we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)
The truth is, God can and does allow
us to be in situations that are far beyond our ability to handle, to
endure. Situations where you feel like
you are backed into a corner with no way out, where you have no idea what to do
next, where you despair of life and feel like the angel of death is breathing
down your neck, literally or figuratively.
But what do we usually do when we
face these situations?So why do we put this pressure on ourselves to handle it all? Why do we keep thinking that God will never send a burden we can’t bear, so we better be able to handle every circumstance we encounter? Why do we keep trying to keep all the balls up in the air, not even allowing ourselves the time to do nothing more than simply stop and smell the roses and thank God for them? Always running, always struggling, always striving?
The thing is, I don’t see any verses like that in the Bible. I don’t see any that say, “Thou shall always be strong enough to carry thy burdens, without any outside help. Thou shall run and run and run all day, keeping busy accomplishing and doing and striving. By this, you show yourself to be a faithful, capable servant of God.”
As 2 Cor. 1:8-9 shows us, life will be too much for us to bear alone. God gives us more than we can handle. We will indeed face things that are beyond our ability to handle, that will make us want to roll over and give up and die. It’s how God teaches us to run to Him, to fall on Him, to need Him, to rest in Him, to be still and know that He is God.
Bible Verses:
“Be still, and know that
I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the
earth.” (Psalm 46:10)
“Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still.” (Exodus 14:13-14)
“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. . .” (Psalm 37:7)
“But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.” (Habakkuk 2:20)
“Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.” (Ecc. 5:2)
“. . . search your hearts and be silent.” (Psalm 4:4)
1. Did this topic trigger any thoughts you want to share? Any Bible verses you want to bring up?
2. Can you think of other ways that we can “be still”? How would you explain what “being still” means? And why does God want us to learn to do this?
3. What are some other ways
we fail to “be still”? What are some
other consequences of failing to be still?
How does that differ from a life where we have learned to be still? Any examples from your life?
4. Do you think Christians
in general have learned how to be still before God? If not, what effect is it having on us?
5. Our society is built for
speed, for multitasking and for jumping to the next thing before we finish the
first. What kind of effect is this
having on us, on our society, and on our families?
6. In what ways do we need
to slow down more, as a society and as Christians?
7. Do you seek to connect
with the Lord during the day, in prayer, in meditating on Him, in reading the
Word, or during a regular quiet time with Him?
What do you do during that time?
How does it affect you? (Or if
you don’t do these things, how does
that affect you? How might adopting
regular spiritual disciplines or a regular devotional time change your life?)
8. What “wasted moments”
can you find in your day when you could be turning your mind to God?
9. Can you “be still” in
all the ways: physically, mentally, in trust, and in waiting? If not, why not? What are you afraid might happen if you were
to “be still” in these ways? Do you have
any examples from your life when you’ve done it right or wrong?
10. How do you normally face
or handle trials that come up? How do
you feel about “waiting” on Him, especially when the wait is long and
dark? What gets in the way of being able
to “be still” and wait on God during trials?
11. Why is thanksgiving so important for getting
that “peace of God which surpasses all understanding”? How might a “lack of
thanksgiving” lead to no peace?
12. I said that God whispers and that we have to
have “ears to hear.” Do you think this
is true? What does the Bible mean when
it says He “whispers”? What does “ears
to hear” mean? And what does all this
mean for us?
13. What other ways does God get our attention
and get His messages across to us? And
what ways might He use to get our attention if we do not have “ears to hear”?
14. What are some ways God has gotten your
attention over the years? How have you
“heard” Him?
15. What do you think this verse means?
“Come to me, all you
who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for
I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is
light.” (Matthew
11:28-30)16. Do you agree with me that it is possible to “pursue God too much, to run too hard after Him”? Have you ever experienced this?
17. Can you think of other “expectations” of God
or of ourselves that might affect our relationship with Him, our peace, our
trust of Him, and our ability to “be still”?
What expectations have you had?
How did it affect you?
18. What do you think I mean when I say, “I need
to stop ‘doing’ and start ‘being’”?
19. What do you think I mean when I said
this: “I have tried and tried to make my hope and
faith strong enough to hold me up, but now I really just need God to hold me.”? Do we sometimes lean more on our “hope and
faith” than we do on God? (And if so,
how? And what effect does it have?) Or is it the same thing?
20. Do you think God speaks through the quiet? Why might we avoid the quiet? Have you ever learned an important lesson
this way?
21. Do you think God goes slower than we do? If so, why does this frustrate us? How do we fight or interfere with the long
waits and slow answers, and what are some of the possible consequences of doing
this? What would be a better way to
handle them instead?
22. What are some ways that Satan gets to you
spiritually? How can you protect
yourself against this?
23. I said that hope in God doesn’t include worry
and trying to make things happen, etc.
What else does hope not include? What
is “hope” and how do we live it out?
24. “But those who hope in the Lord will renew
their strength. They will soar on wings
like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be
faint.” (Isaiah
40:31)
What do you think this verse
means? How can we apply it? And have you experienced this in your
life? 25. Ephesians 5:17, 18 says, “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. . . . be filled with the Spirit.”
26. How can you tell if someone (yourself) is not filled with the Spirit? What gets in the way of “being filled”? And what are some wrong reasons and some right reasons why we might seek to be filled with the Spirit?
27. Do you think God is challenging you about
anything related to this topic?
28. Are there any other thoughts or questions that you want to add?