Stillness Derives from Being
The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14
Learning to discern the difference between a call to a state of being and a call to a state of action is one of the most challenging of insights to attain. Kinetic activity is appealing to the will and self-affirming to the intellect, whereas being speaks to conditioning of the will and subordination of intellectual inclination. While the soul is the capital of both states, the question isn’t which state befits the season or circumstances, but which spirit, truth or deception, preserves jurisdiction.
Spiritual jurisdiction, not juxtaposition of states, determines the veracity of insight discerned by the soul. The beautiful poetic discourse of the 23rd Psalms engages kinetic acts, outcomes, and prophecies to usher the hearer foremost into a state of being:
The Lord is my Shepherd
Silence does not denote His absence
I shall not want
I sense provision before I possess it
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures
He confiscates my schedule in order to nurture my soul
He leadeth me beside the still waters
He escorts me to hushed and tranquil spiritual zones
He restoreth my soul
He first silences my contemplation and then my circumstances
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake
My uncertainty gains clarity, one obedient act at a time
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
My path is determined by His purpose, not prevailing conditions
I will fear no evil, for thou art with me
My companion is a champion fear buster and evil basher
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me
His governance imparts to me a highly personalized peace
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies
There are things that are His alone to bring to pass
Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over
He first chose me, now my joy inspires riots of envy
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life
He suffers my relentless doing, while providentially inspiring me to be
I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever…
He’s made it clear where I’m to go from here, and being is my passport
decide in the light 