Evening Devotional - The Call to Be Still

Let us begin this evening devotional in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we come before You tonight with hearts full of gratitude. Thank You for bringing us through another day. As we gather to reflect on Your Word, we ask that You would still our hearts, quiet our minds, and allow Your presence to fill us with peace. Teach us, Lord, to rest in You. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Scripture:Psalm 46:10 (ESV)

"Be still, and know that I am God."

Devotional:

Good evening, friends. Tonight, we come together to pause and reflect on a profound command from God, one that we might often overlook in the hustle and bustle of life: “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

In a world that constantly demands our attention and fills our lives with noise, God is calling us to stillness. To be still does not just mean to be physically quiet; it means to cease striving, to let go of the noise inside and outside of us. This is a call to rest in God’s presence, to be reminded of who He is and who we are in Him.

Psalm 46 was written during a time of great upheaval. The psalmist is reminding us that, even when the earth is shaking and nations are in turmoil, there is a place of refuge. The Lord is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1). In the midst of trouble, He does not simply provide a quick fix to our problems but calls us to Himself. “Be still,” He says, “and know that I am God.”

But what does it mean to truly know that He is God?

The word know here implies more than intellectual knowledge. It is a deep, personal, experiential knowledge. It is about recognizing and acknowledging God's sovereignty over all creation, acknowledging His power, His wisdom, and His faithfulness. It is about trusting in His ability to handle everything, including the things that keep us up at night.

When we are still before the Lord, we stop trying to fix everything on our own, we stop striving, and we simply rest in His presence. In this place of stillness, we remind ourselves that God is in control. In fact, Psalm 46:10 is a call to surrender. It is a call to stop fighting for control over things that are ultimately beyond us.

The world tells us to keep going, to never stop, to always be productive, to always be moving. But God tells us to rest. He tells us that, in stillness, we find Him. In stillness, we know that He is God, and we are reminded that He is sufficient. We can release our burdens because He carries them for us.