Be still and know that He is God

We may never know why the Lord does the things He does, or why He allows certain things to happen, but one thing we can always be sure of: He is God. He will never change. He is in control. He is love. He is compassionate. He is faithful. He is kind. He is longsuffering. He is sympathetic. He is strong. He will uphold us. He will protect us. He will defend us. He is caring. He is peace. He is safe. He is the epitome and very source of love and sometimes we are the most keenly aware of it in the midst of a tragedy. There are moments in life when storms of darkness come in and enclose around us, and as scary as it may be, sometimes we just need to be still and know that He is God and rest in the knowledge and comfort of His embrace, knowing that somehow, in all the chaos, He is lovingly in control and has a distinct purpose and plan for good to those that love Him and are called according to His purpose.

Today I got heartbreaking news that a dear sister in Christ has untreatable liver cancer. It is in times like these that I don't know what to say, except, please pray for her, and please pray for her family. This I do know: She loves Jesus more than life itself and lovingly and cheerfully lives according to all His beautiful purposes.

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"Be still, and know that I am God"

Psalm 46:10

The Discipline of Heeding

"Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops."

Matthew 10:27

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"At times God puts us through the discipline of darkness to teach us to heed Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and we are put into the shadow of God's hand until we learn to hear Him. "What I tell you in darkness" - watch where God puts you into darkness, and when you are there keep your mouth shut. Are you in the dark just now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? Then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will talk in the wrong mood: darkness is the time to listen. Don't talk to other people about it; don't read books to find out the reason of the darkness, but listen and heed. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else when you get into the light.
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"After every time of darkness there comes a mixture of delight and humiliation (if there is delight only, I question whether we have heard God at all), delight in hearing God speak, but chiefly humiliation - What a long time I was in hearing that! How slow I have been in understanding that! And yet God has been saying it all these days and weeks. Now He gives you the gift of humiliation which brings the softness of heart that will always listen to God now.
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"We do not consciously disobey God, we simply do not heed Him. God has given us His commands; there they are, but we do not pay any attention to them, not because of willful disobedience but because we do not love and respect Him. "If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments." When once we realize that we have been "disrespecting" God all the time, we are covered with shame and humiliation because we have not heeded Him.
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"Speak thou with us . . . but let not God speak with us." We show how little we love God by preferring to listen to His servants only. We like to listen to personal testimonies, but we do not desire that God Himself should speak to us. Why are we so terrified lest God should speak to us? Because we know that if God does speak, either the thing must be done or we must tell God we will not obey Him. If it is only the servant's voice we hear, we feel it is not imperative, we can say, "Well, that is simply your own idea, though I don't deny it is probably God's truth."
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"Am I putting God in the humiliating position of having treated me as a child of His whilst all the time I have been ignoring Him? When I do hear Him, the humiliation I have put on Him comes back on me - "Lord, why was I so dull and so obstinate?" This is always the result when once we do hear God. The real delight of hearing Him is tempered with shame in having been so long in hearing Him."

-Oswald Chambers