Be Still, Oh my Soul

Psalm 62:5-8

Let all that I am wait quietly before God,
for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. My victory and honor come from God alone. He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me. O my people, trust in him at all times.
Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge.

David was being chased by men with a goal to kill him. In Psalm 62, He seems to be talking to himself, to his whole soul, to his entire being, saying, "quiet down", which means to rest, be silent, dumb, to be still, be put to silence.  His thoughts may have been swirling, very disrupted by the whole situation. His whole being tense and on edge and he speaks to himself, "Let all that I am wait quietly before God."

There was a time in my life when all that was in me was in chaos. I couldn't quiet my thoughts. They were like a bird in my brain darting back and forth, never perching long enough to even create one clear thought. My nerves were on high alert, tense and startled by the smallest sound. Out of desperation and great desire, I had asked God to help me to experience the Peace that passes all understanding.

Peace and quiet around me and within me was something I never experienced in my first 17 years. I had grown up in chaos and turmoil. Peace and quiet were unknown to me. When I got away from home and grew older,  I began to know peace and quiet AROUND me, but to know it WITHIN me ...I had yet to learn. 

One morning, I remember sitting in my quiet corner with the morning light coming in on me. My body was tense, my thoughts were whirling and incomplete, I was internally and mentally in chaos and confusion. I was desperate to experience stillness within myself.

That day, I began to learn about quieting myself before the Lord. Learning to calm my mind, my soul, .... to be still and silent and experience quietness and peacefulness within myself were, honestly, foreign to me. 

I sat there, in my comfy chair, feeling like a wild woman within myself and I began to say to myself, "Shhhhhhh, shhhhhhhh, shhhhhhh....." I would sense a bit of calmness, then my thoughts would ramp up again, but after a while of silencing myself, as David had, I began to be quiet enough within myself, that I could read God's Word and "hear" it and calmness would come as I would focus on WHO My God is, in my situation.

It has been an ongoing thing to, on purpose, quiet myself, to put myself to silence before the Lord, so that the any noise or chaos trying to creep in would stop and leave, so I can hear God and put my trust in him. Peace within me is so desirable, it is worth pursuing. Chaos within me is so undesirable, it is worth taking time to silence it.

I pray that you, too, would live in the peace that passes understanding within yourself, regardless of any chaos without. Silence yourself before the Lord. Put your hope in Him and do not be shaken by the circumstances around you because you know Your God and you place your trust in him.

Read again: Psalm 62:5-8
Let all that I am wait quietly before God,
for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. My victory and honor come from God alone. He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me. O my people, trust in him at all times.
Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge.

Psalm 131:2
Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.