The plane ride was a short two hours, but it appeared to be taking forever. I had just flown back from this city the week before, but now I was unexpectedly returning for a reason that would change my world forever.  The night before, I finished putting the final touches on my Sunday school lesson for the next morning when the phone rang.

It was my sister.  She said there had been an accident.  My mother had choked on dinner; she was now unconscious, on a ventilator, and things looked very grim.  How can this be?  I was just there a week ago with her.

We had just celebrated my parents’ wedding anniversary, and now she was on a ventilator and not expected to live.  A freak accident? Choking? How? Why? The grief crushed me, my heart shattered, and the questions were multiplying.

I sat on the plane with my Bible in my lap, tears streaming down my cheeks, thinking two things. First, my greatest fear was becoming a reality. Second, everything I believed about God was now causing me to question the very words in the Bible I was gripping!

Could I really trust him? As I sat there, my heart crumbling with grief, I simply heard in my spirit (no audible voice, of course), God say to me, “Be still and know that I am God.” It was the hardest day, week, and time in my life.

While I had read and studied some about the sovereignty of God, it was time to sink my faith deep into this truth.  I could be still and trust him.  That was not easy.  I knew that it would take time to root this truth deep into my heart.  But now, 22 years later, it is a truth that I cling to time and time again.  I go back to it repeatedly.

The very context of when God said this in Psalm 46:10 was during a time of great turmoil. Psalm 46:2 states, “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth gives way and the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea.” Every foundation was shaken.  Yet, the truth that God was “in the midst of her; she shall not be moved” and that “God will help her when morning dawns” (Psalm 46:5) is what led me to learn what it meant to “be still and know that I am God.”

“Be still” means to cease striving. It communicates rest and for us to settle down. In other words, “stop!”  That has always been hard for me, but God was calling me to settle into his love. He wanted me to know his character and trust his sovereign power and control. He also wanted me to know his love in the midst of great sorrow!

I could not stop the inevitable of losing my mother, though she lived on a ventilator for 6 days.  I could not wake up from what seemed to be my worst nightmare.  But God kept calling to me to “be still” and rest in him.  He had not abdicated his throne on the evening when my mother choked.  He had not turned his back and forgotten to look out for her.  It was not a freak accident or even a tragedy, as many stated.  There are no accidents with God.  Nothing that comes into our lives is a tragedy if it leads us to turn and rest completely in him.

“Know that I am God.”  That day and every day since, God has repeated this phrase to me.  He reminds me in so many ways that he is God – he is all that he says he will be. In this very Psalm, at the beginning, the writer tells us that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”  This is only a couple of the many descriptions of God, and they tell me that God is everything I need at any given time of my life.

God was my strength at this time of great distress and a very present help to me in my deepest sorrow. I have indeed found him to be everything I need.  He is enough – this I know!

This truth must become practical.  I find that there is true peace in my life when I rest in the sovereign control of God.  Knowing God is in control of my life settles my heart, even when everything else is out of control.  Whatever comes into my life is from the loving hand of my heavenly father for my good and his glory.  My hope is in him and not my circumstances changing.

Therefore, I can rest in any circumstances knowing God will use all of this to make me more dependent upon him and more content in all circumstances.  Nothing ever escapes his awareness, and nothing comes to our lives apart from his loving, sovereign hand guiding it to us. Settle in him and the peace he alone brings; put your hope in him alone and rest – be still and know he is God!