By Rev. Dr. A. B. Simpson.
Be still, and know that I am God.”— Psalms 46:10.
IT was “a still, small voice,” or “the sound of a gentle stillness.” Is there any note of music, in all the chorus, as mighty as the emphatic pause? Is there any word in all the Psalter more eloquent than that one word, Selah (Pause)? Is there anything more thrilling and awful than the hush that comes before the bursting of the tempest, and the strange quiet that seems to fall upon all nature before some preternatural phenomenon or convulsion? Is there anything that can so touch our hearts as the power of stillness?
The sweetest blessing that Christ brings us is the Sabbath rest of the soul, of which the Sabbath of creation was the type, and the Land of Promise God’s great abject lesson.
There is, for the heart that will cease from itself, “the peace of God that passeth all understanding,” a “quietness and confidence” which is the source of all strength, a sweet peace which nothing can offend, a deep rest “which the world can neither give nor take away.”
There can be, in the deepest center of the soul, a chamber of peace where God dwells, and where, if we will only enter in and hush every other sound, we can hear His still, small Voice.
There is, in the swiftest wheel that revolves upon its axis, a place in the very center where there is no movement at all; and so, in the busiest life, there may be a place where we dwell alone with God in eternal stillness.
This is the only way to know God. “Be still, and know that I am God.” “God is in His Holy Temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
A score of years ago, a friend placed in my hand a little book, which became one of the turning-points of my life.
It was called “True Peace.” It was an old medieval message, and it had but one thought, and it was this― that God was waiting to talk to me, if I would only get still enough to hear His voice.
I thought this would be a very easy matter, and so I began to get still. But, I had no sooner commenced than a perfect pandemonium of voices reached my ears, a thousand clamoring notes from without and within, until I could hear nothing but their noise and din. Some of them were nay own voice, some of them were my own questions, some of them were my own cares, some of them were my very prayers. Others were the suggestions of the tempter, and the voices from the world’s turmoil. Never before did there seem so many things to be done, to be said, to be thought; and in every direction I was pushed, and pulled, and greeted with noisy acclamations, and unspeakable unrest. It seemed necessary for me to listen to some of them, and to answer some of them. But God said, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Then came the conflict of thoughts for the morrow, and its duties and cares. But God said, “Be still.”
And as I listened, and slowly learned to obey, and shut my ears to every sound, I found, after a while, that when the other voices ceased, or I ceased to hear them, there was a still, small Voice in the depths of my being, that began to speak with an inexpressible tenderness, power, and comfort. As I listened, it became to me the voice of prayer, and the voice of wisdom, and the voice of duty, and I did not need to think so hard, or pray so hard, or trust so hard, but that “still, small Voice” of the Holy Spirit in my heart, was God’s answer to all my questions, was God’s life and strength for soul and body, and became the substance of all knowledge, and all prayer, and all blessing; for it was the living God Himself as my life and my all.
Beloved! this is our spirit’s deepest need. It is thus that we learn to know God. It is thus that we receive spiritual refreshment and nutriment. It is thus that our heart is nourished and fed. It is thus that we receive the Living Bread. It is thus that our spirit drinks in the life of our risen Lord, and we go forth to life’s conflicts and duties like the flower that had drunk in, through the shades of night, the cool and crystal drops of dew. But, as the dew never falls on a stormy night, so the dews of His grace never come to the restless soul.
We cannot go through life strong and fresh on constant express trains, with ten minutes for lunch; but we must have quiet hours, secret places of the Most High, times of waiting upon the Lord, when we renew our strength, and learn to mount up with wings as eagles, and then come back to run and not be weary, and to walk and not faint.
The best thing about this stillness is, that it gives God a chance to work. “He that is entered into His rest hath ceased from his own works, even as God did from His”; and, when we cease from our works, God works in us; and when we cease from our thoughts, God’s thoughts come into us; when we get still from our restless activity, “God worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure,” and we have but to work it out.
Beloved! let us take His stillness. Let us dwell in “the secret place of the Most High.” Let us enter into God and His eternal rest. Let us silence the other sounds, and then we can hear “the still, small Voice.”
Then, there is another kind of stillness, the stillness that lets God work for us, and holds our peace; the stillness that ceases from its contriving, and its self-vindication, and its expedients of wisdom and forethought, and lets God provide, and answer the unkind word, and the cruel blow, in His Own unfailing, faithful love. How often we lose God’s interposition by taking up our own cause, and striking for our own defense.
There is no spectacle in all the Bible so sublime as the silent Saviour, answering not a word to the men that were maligning Him, and whom He could have laid prostrate at His feet by one look of divine power, or one word of fiery rebuke. But He let them say and do their worst, and He stood in the power of stillness—God’s Holy, silent Lamb.
God give to us this silent power, this mighty self-surrender, this conquered spirit, which will make us “more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” Let our voice and our life speak, like “the still, small Voice” of Horeb, and as the “sound of a gentle stillness,” so that others may be drawn to Him Who said, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”