Discover how to embrace the message of being still and knowing He is God for calmness and faith during challenging moments.
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Mark 4:39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
1 Kings 22:3; Psa. 4:4; 46:10; 84:4; Is. 23:2; Jer. 47:6; Mark 4:39
In my profile, I share that several of my children served our country in the U.S. Navy.
Interestingly, the one that was the most determined to join, and even at a younger age than the others, never got to see boot camp. He enlisted, went to MEPS, took his ASVAB, and his scores were very impressive to the recruiters that worked with him. He wanted to go SEAL and he wanted to learn Farsi. I don’t think any of his siblings would disagree, that he was and is, the most hard-core of all my children.
Two weeks before his ship-out date, I had to rush him to the emergency room with no idea what was wrong with him. He had worked with our pastor’s dad several days that week and only complained once about not feeling quite right. This day was different.
His siblings ran upstairs to tell me that he was in his bedroom floor and the rest of what they said, I can’t remember it making sense. I just ran to see what was wrong.
To my shock, he really was on the floor. I got down in the floor and he started trying to sit up but he kept falling back over. He wasn’t talking either. He felt a little warm but not like a high fever and I began to wrestle with him to get him back in his bed. That took a great deal of effort. I told him to stay in the bed, I was making a pot of soup for everyone, and I would be right back.
I knew that I had better make a huge pot of soup to feed his siblings and start making plans to get him to the emergency room, and we might be making camp at the hospital.
Before I barely got started, my other children were running back up the stairs, nearly in tears because he wasn’t acting right and had gotten back up and fallen. My poor other children were almost scared of him. I really can’t explain but as a mother, my heart was ripping inside me, but I knew I had to rush to get things done and I made a phone call to ask for help to get him in my vehicle. My son was out of his mind nearly. We were nearly forty minutes from the hospital.
We had to argue some with the ER folks because they wouldn’t get us a stretcher since he didn’t come by ambulance, and I told them he couldn’t walk. We finally got him in a wheelchair and thank God for one nurse who immediately smelled the ketones on his breath. She looked at me and said “Honey, he’s a diabetic.”
“Please help him” was my only response. I was holding it together, but I was terrified. Within minutes, he was sent upstairs to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. When we had walked in, his blood sugar was 1200 and by the time the Cardiac Unit saw him, his blood sugar had jumped to 1500. His organs were starting to shut down, they said, but it didn’t fully register to me. I was in shock at what all was happening.
They had stripped all of his clothes off, they had wires all over him, and there was an entire team of medical professionals encircling him when they called me back in a room. It was obvious right away why they had brought me back there.
He was fighting every one of them in his inability to understand anything going on around him. He was ripping their equipment off. He was flailing his arms. They needed me to help.
He was also yelling and saying; “Tell my brothers to pray for me!” And then he would ask, “Am I going to die?”
My heart felt like it was going to explode when he said those things.
I waved for the doctors to move aside, and I walked up to my 17-year-old son and stood at the head of the bed. I put my hands on his face and began to talk to him.
“Listen buddy, can you hear me? Can you hear mom?” He instantly put his arms down. I almost chuckled about it because it reminded me of him acting innocent, when I’d walked into a room, and he was being naughty as a little boy. You know, like, “uh-oh, mom’s in the room – have to straighten up!”
I kept talking to him.
“Listen, first, we are all praying for you. Second, you’re really sick but you ARE NOT going to die. He’s got you! But listen, buddy, you gotta calm down. You have a whole team of doctors and nurses trying to help you and you have to let them. Stop fighting the doctors and nurses. I need you to be still and let them do their work so they can help you. …And in case you didn’t know, you’re completely naked except for a loincloth, so you’re going to have to be still in front of these lady nurses to stay covered up.” He tried to smile, knowing I was poking a little fun at him, and laid down, and got still.
“I love you. You’re going to be okay, just be still and let the doctors and nurses help you.” My son laid there as still and chill, as if he were napping.
Every soul in the room breathed a sigh of relief. He had finally calmed down. And I stepped back so the doctors could move back in. Then, I turned and collapsed into the arms of the person that helped me get him there. I had held it together, but seeing my child suffering and then surrendering was so tough. It was a scary moment. It was a scary week. He spent days in ICU on dialysis.
But I was so blessed, that my son, heard and trusted my words in that moment. I was so thankful that God used my words to speak “peace be still” into a terrifying situation for him. That peace affected the whole room!
(My son recovered. He was put on several diabetic medications, and his recruiter came to visit, and to tell us he wouldn’t get to go to boot camp or the navy now. My son is now a gym junkie who has better A1C scores than I do currently. God is good!)
That “peace be still” moment was however, much larger for me than I can tell you. There were wild, raging storms going on around me. Some so dark, that I couldn’t see them at the time.
But in the darkest and scariest of them all, God was not absent. And God bypassed everything, to be faithful to speak peace in that moment. He was no respecter of persons, nor circumstances, in that moment. He was my ever-faithful Father.
Beloved of God, the Lord can speak just like that to your storm too! He can bypass the people and circumstances around you and pour His peace in you, despite the world around you.
My son’s storm wouldn’t be over for days, and my own personal storms would not be over for several years, but in that moment- God held me and He held my son. In that moment, I knew my son was going to be okay. In that moment, all was still. In that moment, that whole room was still. In that moment, my heart was still.
Even as I’m telling you about it, that stillness is memorable to all of my senses. It was a “force” of sorts. I will never feel worthy of those precious faithful moments, but I will praise Him for His mercy and grace.
Psalms 83:1 Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.
I love how this verse compares to the one in the New Testament.
Mark 4:39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
Isn’t it interesting that we are told “Be still, and know that I am God” in Psalms 46:10, compared to these verses? In Hebrew, this “be still” phrase means to slacken, let alone, stop striving.
But when I read these verses together, I find it interesting that at the moment we need Him to not be still, we are to be still.
I know how hard it can be in moments, to let it go, and to stand down.
One of the things that helps me when I’m in a moment of an obnoxious storm, is to visualize what it is that I am asking of a Holy God seated on His throne.
In that moment, I’m saying, “Lord, this is bigger than me. This battle is Your’s. I stand down, I lay down my arms, my rights, and all that I am, and I invite, and even beg, for You Holy God, to arise from Your throne and do this thing and speak, as only You, Who has all power can, and say to it “Peace, be still.”
I picture in my mind, that I’m in the courts, interrupting, with full faith that I can, and I bow and step back and wave Him in.
Beloved, that is in fact what we are doing. We are asking God, to arise. We are asking Him to not be still.
We, on the other hand, are standing down, backing up out of the way, and asking for the King of Glory to come into our stormy situation and speak peace.
When you think of Him arising to tend to your storm, it is much easier to be still.
I encourage you by faith, to be still, knowing God can speak peace. Trust Him, He is faithful.
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