There are times when clouds gather and snow falls in early April, when disappointment knocks on our door, when stress sets in like a frost and our emotions or anger or worry stir up inside of us. Like a pot of maple syrup set on the stove, we warm and then simmer and then heat into a stirring boil that threatens to overspill the confines and submerge the surroundings in a brown-steaming, sticky mess.
This is the way of the adversary. The one who seeks to make us miserable like unto himself. “…and they were much disturbed, for Satan did stir them up…that he might harden the hearts of the people against that which was good…” He does not want us to see the good, the beautiful gifts from God all around us. He would rather us boil over and then harden into an impossible sheet of maple “rock.”
But there is another way, a higher way. It is whispered by the dew drops of summer morn, the silent snowfall, the stately steadiness of distant mountains.
It is the way of “stillness.”
And when the sun beams down in radiance, and the house is quiet, and the birds chortle their morning medley, it is easier to savor the stillness and say, yes.
But when tempers rise, toddlers topple, crumbs scatter themselves all over newly-swept floors, voices rise and so do our internal temperatures and something starts to stir. Yet this is when the “still” makes all the difference, this is when the “still” calms the raging storm, and only He has power to do that.
“Still” is not easy, or convenient, or even desired in the midst of the way of he who stirs.
But only “still” will bring the inner peace we crave.
And so we fight the stirring, we settle and still and breathe.
And if we wonder, “Master, carest thou not that we perish?” We will hear the tender rebuke, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”
“Be still, and know that I am God…”
