Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
There are times in our journey with God where a certain phrase becomes a proceeding word. Basically this means if we are to proceed on with our journey there is a word that we must have in order to proceed. It is like a traffic light at a busy intersection, you cannot proceed until the light turns green.
Matthew 4:4
But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedsfrom the mouth of God.'”
When the Lord first began the outpouring of the River of the Holy Spirit last year, one of those proceeding phrases was ‘get low’. I personally discovered just as the grace of God has no end (James 4:6) there is also no bottom to humility. As I would ‘step down’ I would find myself in the River of His Holy Spirit.
While I was in Argentina I begin to ‘hear’ another one of those proceeding words, it was “be still”. At first it was real faint and and seemed like a long way off, it was if I saw a sign in the spirit world that read traffic light ahead.
This is the scripture the Lord spoke to me while in Argentina. Psalm 46:10
10 Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations,I will be exalted in the earth!
When I read this now my heart is stirred as I have discovered some interesting things about Psalm 46. First, it contains the scripture the Lord gave us that lead to the name RiverLife.
Psalm 46:4-5
There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God, The holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High. 5 God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, just at the break of dawn.
How blessed we are to be named by the Lord, but also to have this real River flowing in and through us as a local church.
Second, this Psalm was written in the context of war. The heading in my NKJV Bible over Psalm 46 reads, “God the Refuge of His People and Conqueror of the Nations”. In the midst of all hell breaking loose, the Lord tells us the River still flows and we can experience the gladness of the River. He is saying this because it is in those times of crisis that we tend to pull away and take things back into our own hands as God always seems to show up at the very last moment or “just at the break of dawn”.
He goes on to say “Be still and know that I am God”, I do not believe this is talking about being passive at all, it is very hard work to be still in the middle of a crisis. It is a lot easier to do something and most of the time we take the easy way out and keep ourselves busy. That is what I had been doing and I found myself going nowhere, in fact I was getting more frustrated by the day. I wanted to proceed but I was not obeying the proceeding word, “be still”.
I read a story several years ago that is very revealing concerning being still. A company of American soldiers in Vietnam were pinned down and completely surrounded by the enemy. In the midst of this fierce battle it appeared that the company commander was taking a nap! All ended well as help finally arrived and the company was rescued from certain defeat and death. However, the commander was brought before his superiors to determine if he was guilty of neglect of duty and be court marshaled. The commander explained that he was not sleeping at all, but getting still and focusing on three questions, 1. What is going on around me? 2. What is not going on around me? 3. What can I do about questions 1&2 ? Instead of barking orders and reacting to what was going on around him, that commander got still so he could get the wisdom to keep his company alive until help arrived. Indeed, he was a very wise man and his ‘being still’ saved the lives of his soldiers.
A phrase from a Misty Edwards song sums it up, “I’ll give you time to come and melt me”. As we get still and wait on the Lord, He does what only He can do. Isaiah 40:31 31 But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired. Amplified
So be it.
Shalom…bw