Be Still
“Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)
I’ve been taking cold morning showers and the occasional cold plunge for all the health benefits and as a way of disciplining my mind to normalize uncomfortableness. It’s both miserable and invigorating, and certainly a test of the mind to endure it and not escape it. There’s an interesting thing that happens in a cold plunge. The initial plunge takes your breath away and causes your heart to race, but within a few moments of perfect stillness everything begins to settle. The warmth of your body creates a very thin thermal barrier of slightly warmer water all around you. Any movement introduces a burst of uncomfortable cold water; perfect stillness preserves the thermal barrier.
Last night I woke up again at 2am for some unknown reason; there was no sound or anything that jarred me awake (Jake was still sound asleep), but my heart rate was up and my body was unsettled. Sometimes this becomes a point of no return and it’s better just to get up rather than try to settle back into sleep, but I sensed the Lord was leading me to just be still. Rather than taking a walk or turning on a lamp to try to read myself back to sleep, I laid there in the dark as perfectly still as I could with my wandering thoughts. I silently prayed my concerns but there was no peace and I kept rustling around in my bed. The more I moved the more uncomfortable I became, and with that typically comes frustration and sometimes anger. It seemed that praying my concerns, intercessory or otherwise, wasn’t what I was awake to do.
There’s the familiar verse in Hebrews 12 that tells us to “Fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God”. I listened to a podcast by Andrew Huberman on ‘mental training and visualizing’ earlier in the week, and earlier that day I listened to a preacher sharing something similar regarding our prayers, so I took their advice. It’s not new to me to use visualization of the vastness of the universe to glean perspective on the awe of God when needed (click the link below), but last night I needed the visualization of Hebrews 12:2. I conjured up my sanctified imagination with what I’ve learned from Scripture, and I worked to fix my thoughts on Him…High and lifted up, seated, strong, eternal. I put my concerns down and looked up, and held that gaze in perfect stillness. There is simultaneously a holy fear and awe elicited from the visualization given in the book of Revelation, yet He calls us friend and is intimately acquainted with all our ways. In this stillness the proverbial ‘thermal barrier’ covered me until I was back asleep, and then I awoke at a reasonable hour to the scene in the picture below.
Sometimes God awakens us for the purpose of intercessory prayer. Sometimes He calls us into some proverbial dark and cold season to meet with Him for the illumination of something profound for His glory and our good, and sometimes He draws us out of sleep to remind us of the simplest but profound truth that He is Lord and we are to find our rest in Him. We are called for good works which He laid out for us from the foundation of this world, but above all else, we’re called to simply abide in Him. Fix our gaze and simply abide. His providence is over all. Be still.
It’s important to note that the Hebrew word for ‘be still’ is ‘raphah’, which means to relax, to let go, to cease, to be weak, to be idle. What a beautiful paradox in considering the truth of 2 Corinthians 12:9, “For my power is perfected in weakness”. In ‘being still’ we are ceasing to strive and releasing our anxieties in a paradoxical show of weakness for the purpose of gaining new strength. Be still, be weak, and let go in the presence of almighty God, and He will be your strength.
May this be said of our journey with Him in 2025.
“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” Isaiah 26:3
“Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
