Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations.

Psalms 46:10 (NKJV)

If you are following me, you will hear a lot about rest. It is presently what God is doing with me in this season. He is quieting my soul as a mother a child who, having felt the hardship of life in some way, finds himself in tears.

In the Christian life, there are times we are called to act, to step out of the place of idleness or timidity and conquer whatever needs to be conquered. But sometimes the hardships of life jar us in a way that puts our soul in a state of distress, and in those moments what is needed is rest. In those moments, it may feel like God is bringing us to a place of inactivity, even idleness. But what He is doing is bringing our souls back to center. He is allowing the trauma, for lack of better words, to come up, instead of allowing it to drive us.

Six years ago my wife of twenty-five years died suddenly. That was a shock to the system, but in the wake of my loss, I felt like God saying to me, “You have been grieving for a long time.” And by that, he meant what I am describing: life had jarred my soul early on in life, long before my recent loss, and I had been in a state of distress ever sense. I had been going through life on high alert without even knowing it, and God was now bringing me into a place of deep rest.

I am a high achiever by nature. But sometimes the only thing we can do is be still. For it is in the stillness that God does his best work. Many of us think we are not doing enough; the truth is we are doing too much. Again, it depends on the season, but many of us are operating from a place of high alert in the wake of some moment where life jarred us.

Rest is not idleness. It is giving the soul and God a chance to quiet our souls long enough to align us with the rhythm of the Spirit. This is what we were created for, and this is why having a proper theology about the Christian life is so necessary. There are so many opportunities in modern culture to keep your soul in a state of distress. Or if it is already in distress, to indulge its tendency to remain that way. But God is calling us deeper.

Be still today and know that he is God. He will be exalted among the nations, and that means he will be exalted in your life as well as you come to a place of stillness in Him.