Finding stillness amid the storm

Despite what my thermometer tells me, spring is here. The tulips are trying to bloom, but my sweaters are not ready to hibernate for the summer. The weather is warm one day, with snow the next.

This odd weather pattern reminds me of the similarity and huge difference between a thermostat and a thermometer. They are similar in that they involve temperatures. Beyond that, their differences are staggering.

The thermostat sets the temperature, while the thermometer responds.

One sets the environment; the other indicates what is happening in the environment.

The way we respond to the temperature changes of life indicate who we believe is over the environment.

Psalm 46:10 reads, "Be still and know that I am God." This encouraging command sets the environment in which the recipient responds to the consistent character of God.

Stillness is a condition of our heart that responds to the steady character of God. The psalmist is not describing a mystical state of being as much as he is invoking a call to be calm in heart and mind in response to the revealed character of God. God invites, in the way we respond to him, certainty and calm to invade our chaos. Stillness is chosen.

There is a woman I know who is going through a bitter divorce.

From her raw emotional state to the ever-changing demands of her soon-to-be ex-husband, she never knows whether a day will be good or bad. She lives in a continual state of inner conflict.

In her heart, she holds the desire for restoration and peace to return to her marriage and home, while recognizing a bitter reality that her family and marriage may never be restored.

She desires the lifelong marriage she and her husband committed to, while simultaneously recognizing the need to protect herself and her children from further victimization of her husband's adultery.

For her, being still and knowing he is God is not found in a physical moment, but in the promise to cling to.

Life, like the thermometer, can be up and down.

The morning is one way, while the afternoon of our soul is another. But God in and through the promises of his word invites us to know the peace of stillness in the middle of the storm.

Respond in stillness given in the promise of his presence.