Pondering Knoll: Be still and know that He is God

Monday, July 28, 2014

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.

"Be still, and know that I am God"

Psalm 46:10

“In order to be a disciple we must deny ourselves - this is to exercise authority over our own spirit. We must take up the cross - this is to submit to Christ’s authority. And we must follow - this is continued obedience. This is the road not to confinement, to bondage, to a stunted or arrested development, but to total personal freedom. It means not death but life, not a narrowly circumscribed life but “abundant” life. The gate is narrow but not the life. The gate opens out into largeness of life.”

-Elisabeth Elliot

“No sigh ever reached the Most High, except through Christ—I mean so as to move His heart to pour out His grace. Prayers, groans, tears, all these are like arrows without a bow, till Christ comes and fits them to the string, and shoots them home for you and me. All our prayers are like a victim, with the wood and altar; Christ must bring the fire, and then the sacrifice smokes to heaven. He is the messenger. Oh Christian, do you not rejoice in Him then as the Messenger of the Covenant? He is doing thy errands before the throne tonight, pleading for me, pleading for you."

~C. H. Spurgeon

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might, He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Isaiah 40:28-31

"...The central place of faith in Christianity, and its significance...is precisely that which, on man's side, adjusts him to the living and merciful presence and action of a trusted God. In its nature, not by any mere arbitrary arrangement, it is his one possible receptive attitude, that in which he brings nothing, so that he may receive all. Thus "faith" is our side of union with Christ. And thus it is our means of possessing all His benefits, pardon, justification, purification, life, peace, glory."

-Handley Dunelm