Be Still and Know I Am God

How does God speak to us? We learn through the council of His people, through reading His Word, and through the leading of His spirit. In the Old Testament, sometimes people could hear His voice coming from the clouds, and they had verbal, audible conversations. When Moses spoke to the burning bush, he was speaking to God.

God speaks to me a lot through His Word. Lately, I have asked God for direction. This is a time in my life when I could go a lot of directions, and the future is often unclear. For the past few weeks, when I prayed for the solution to an issue, asked for guidance, or simply told Him about my concerns, a certain verse kept coming to my mind:

"Be still and know I am God."

Okay, God. So each time I'd stop, close my eyes, and think to myself, "You are God. Yes, you are God. I am being still now. Okay..."

And then in a few moments, my homework or other responsibilities would call me out of my reverie. Why did He keep asking me to do that? I wanted a solution to my current problem, not to hear that verse again.

Then I went to my church near my university for the first time in over a month. (I was out of state the weekend before, and the previous two Sundays I was on spring break back in my home state.) Anyway, as usual, I sat in the middle section with some of my friends.

My friend pulled out his Bible at the start of the sermon, but he didn't open it yet. And there, engraved on the cover were the words: "Be still and know I am God."

Really?

I chuckled to myself. That phrase had run through my mind numerous times, and now there it was, not just written IN the Bible, but written ON the Bible.

One of my friends asked me the other day how God speaks to people. That's like asking if all people see colors the same way, which is another subject entirely. Every Christian has a different relationship with God, so it depends. One of my good friends told me God has spoken to his heart through songs on the radio. I think that's awesome!

Why DOESN'T God just speak with a great, booming voice out of the sky for all to hear? Well, if it was all perfectly clear and obvious and we could see and hear and talk to God like another person, would we really need faith? Without faith, it's impossible to please Him. And besides, that's simply not how God decided to do it, and He knows best.

Listen to God's whisper. Don't make Him yell...