Cease Striving And Know That I Am God

Graduation, moving apartments, last class, homework, LSAT, wedding, full-time job, part-time job, odds and ends—it’s May and suddenly I turn around and it’s July.  What a whirlwind!

And then there is Psalm 46.  “Cease striving and know that I am God” (v. 10).  Striving and striving and striving.  There are those times in life when it seems that all it is is striving.  Sometimes we strive so much that we don’t even have time to know that He is God.  And it’s times like that that I often feel dry and parched.  I feel weak because I forget that God is my strength.  I feel vulnerable because I forget that God is my refuge, my stronghold.

Verses 4 and 5 of this beautiful psalm describe the City of God in which the Most High dwells.  The psalmist notes that God is in the city and the city will not be moved.  Charles Spurgeon asks, “How can she be moved unless her enemies move her Lord also? His presence renders all hope of capturing and demolishing the city utterly ridiculous” (Treasury of David).  If we are truly dwelling in the midst of that city, then it is illogical to fear.  So why do we so often fear, and more importantly, are we really dwelling in that city?

The psalmist has such confidence in God as to proclaim, “We will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea” (v. 2).  Sometimes a mere tremor is enough to send me quaking, like the other day when I realized at work that I had left the dryer running while no one was home.  For a while, all I could think about was coming home to find a giant ash heap.  Not that it’s good to leave unattended dryers running, but that’s hardly the ocean gulping up Mt. Everest.

I find myself needing to remember that, “The Lord of hosts is with us,” or rather, the Lord of hosts is with me. 

He is with me...

He is with me...

He is with me...