“What are you thinking about?”
My friend’s words floated gently into my subconscious. I looked at him. He was genuinely intrigued.
“You were somewhere else,” he said. “Peaceful.”
I looked back at the horizon stretching out endlessly over the expanse of water in front of me … blue-green in the fading light. I didn’t know how to answer. I’d been looking beyond it … reaching out for something I couldn’t quite see. The sweet mystery of it soaking into my soul. I had indeed been somewhere else.
But what was I thinking about?
Nothing. My mind had unraveled itself. And I was simply thinking of nothing. How wonderfully exhilarating it was.
I inhaled the salty air one last time … slow and deep. I’d bring it home with me. I’d remember. That moment when all I needed to do was just to breathe.
Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10.
I love the simplicity of this verse. There aren’t a plethora of instructions here. Just two. Be still and know.
Put another way — Be at rest and believe.
But what about when trouble and danger seem to lurk everywhere. When you feel like you’re even being hunted by them. When every steady thing is shaken apart or wrestled away from your fingertips. What about when you feel so lost, you don’t even remember where you were going in the first place. What then?
Friends, I’m there in that place more often than I would like to admit. Maybe you are too. And sometimes, I’m so very tired and weary of it that all I want to do is give up and give in to whatever it is that’s chasing me down so mercilessly. But the truth is that if I’m running, then I’m trying too hard to get away. I’m not remembering the calm that speaks louder than the sharks and the waves.
I’m not remembering him.
So I look a bit further than what’s in front of me, staring me down. And for that moment in time, I choose to remember.
As my friend and I walk along the shore toward home, I look back once more at the deeper water. Its beauty masking the dangers underneath. I know they are there, and yet … if I keep my eyes above those waters, on the horizon, I see something else. I see him.
And when I see him? Well … that’s when I truly see me.
And it’s enough.
God, sometimes I feel like I’m wearing floaties in a vast and raging sea. But you’ve told me I can be still and know that you are there and that you’re bigger than all these present dangers. And so I will choose to believe this today. Help me believe so that I may rest in you. In Jesus Name I pray, amen.
