How do we be still in God’s presence? Does that mean we are supposed to not move an inch when we are spending time in His presence? What exactly does be still mean in relation to God’s word? Just like some of you I had those questions too when I first started my walk with the Lord. So I went searching for answers. I asked the Lord to show me what it means for me to be still in His presence. I figured who best to ask than God Himself and let Him direct me to the right answers.

Be still and know that I am God! I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth (Psalms 46:10 NIV).

As I dug deeper into the meaning of the above scripture, I read through different bible translations and several bible commentaries. The part that says be still, the Easy-to-Read Version (ERV) explains it as we are to stop fighting, the New American Standard Bible (NASB) version says cease striving, and the Young’s Literal Translation (YLT) version says desist. If you are like me, you are probably asking but I thought I am supposed to keep fighting till I win; how then can you tell me to cease and desist? Well I’ll tell you. With further research, I discovered that the scripture not only addresses God’s people, but it addresses the enemy as well. Let’s dig in!

What Does It Mean To Be Still?

The above scripture says to the enemy in regards to God’s children, stop! Threaten no more! Stop fighting, cease striving, and desist from attacking my people. Wow! How awesome is that? But guess what, it does not stop there. It says to God’s children, to you and me, be calm, tremble no more, snap out of it, wake up and stop fearing; lay down your weapons and trust God for the victory, believing that it will come in His perfect timing and according to his flawless plan. Wow! Let’s pause here for a minute and reread that so it can sink in deep into our soul. Let it become engraved in your mind. Meditate on that and ask God to give you a personal revelation of that word.

How To Be Still

1. Rest, relax, and watch God work. Take a posture that communicates to God that you are weak and can do nothing on your own except He steps in and helps you, a posture of dependency and surrender.
   
   Surrender the battle to Him and allow Him to win the victory for you. You see, because God knows all our weaknesses, He knows that we can’t fight and defeat the enemy by our own strength, He has given us a way out by telling us exactly what to do, and that is to be still and know that He is God. He is telling us to rest in Him and let go of our concerns, surrender all our cares to Him. Someone had said when we fight, God rests, but when we rest, God fights. I don’t know about you but I choose to rest!


2. Praise, pray, and worship. Now, let me clarify something here. Just because we are to rest, relax, and stop fighting, doesn’t mean we are to remain idle and do nothing. Go ahead, put on that praise and worship music and dance your victory into manifestation.


3. We continue in daily communion with God, reading and meditating on His Word. Get your bible out and feed on His Word. Continue in your daily devotions and keep His word in your heart all day long.

How cool is it that, in Christ, we can be still but at the same time in motion with our spiritual weapons!

We also have to remember that the enemy is all bark and no bite. I repeat, he is all bark and no bite. He pretends to be powerful or acts powerful over us but we are to know that we have full dominion over him. The bible says that our enemy, the devil, goes around like a roaring lion (I Peter 5:8) – keyword here is like. He pretends to have power over us, but the truth is that he does not. Do you hear me? The devil has no power, absolutely none, over you because you belong to Jesus Christ. (This is a good spot for a praise break!). In fact the bible says that we have power and authority over all the powers of the enemy (Luke 10:19 NIV).

Understanding all that we just read is the beginning of our victory. When we are still in God’s presence, we stand back and watch God do all the fighting for us. The truth is that we will be exhausted and defeated if we try to do it all on our own strength. So be still in God, rest in Him, and be assured that He is fighting on your behalf and your victory is secured.

Until next time, remember, keep your hope in God for He loves you and has promised to never leave you nor forsake you!