Reading
“Be still and know that I am God.”
Psalm 46:10
Reflection
On Sunday, Rev. Kissa Vaughan reflected on the experience of a child crawling into your lap just to be with you, resting in complete trust and comfort. This is what God invites us to do in prayer: to simply cuddle up with God and rest in trust—to be still and know that God is God. She asked, “When was the last time you just climbed into the lap of God, just to be with him?”
For most of us, this is a novel way of thinking about prayer. We are more accustomed to treating prayer as a list of requests, perhaps with some gratitude thrown in. This is certainly how I learned to pray, and it is a good way to begin, but God invites us to enter into a deeper relationship in prayer.
In his book The Gift of Being Yourself, David Benner describes the reality this way: “Relationships develop when people spend time together. Spending time with God ought to be the essence of prayer. However, as it is usually practiced, prayer is more like a series of email or instant messages than hanging out together.” To grow deeper in relationship with God, we need regularly to be still and know that God is God.
This morning, begin your day by simply spending time with God, having no agenda except to be together. You might grab a cup of coffee and sit in a comfy chair inside or on the back porch, and take some deep breaths, letting your breath remind you of the Holy Spirit within and around you. When (and not if) you find your mind wandering, calmly return to your intention to be with God. Your brain is just doing what it was made to do.
As you begin, the following prayer from Psalm 46:10 may help you center and focus. The prayer begins with the whole verse—“Be still and know that I am God”—and it drops words with each repetition, until we are simply reminded to “be” in God’s presence. Pray it slowly, pause between lines, and find comfort resting in God, just like a child crawling into their parent’s lap.
Prayer
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.
