When you read the Bible without taking the time to study it, it seems to contain several contradictions. And the people who do not want you to enjoy the benefits of studying your Bible have made much of those so-called contradictions. Take this one, for instance. Psalm 46.10 tells us to, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”
On the other hand, Hebrews 4:1 instructs us to “Labor to enter into His rest.” You start to wonder which it is. Should you rest or should you labor? Actually, there is no contradiction. When the Bible tells you to “be still and know,” you immediately realize that it is not limited to resting without doing anything else. This is the rest that leads you to a fuller knowledge of God.
Hopefully, a picture is starting to emerge of the sort of rest to which the verse refers. You need to take the be still portion in the context of what follows. Be still and know is not inactivity, but a pressing on into the knowledge of God. How do you suppose you can rest and still know something or someone?
Be Still And Know God Is A Powerful Promise
With the instruction to be still and know that He is God, He is issuing a powerful promise. When you know God, He is exalted in all the earth, and that includes in your life and problems. Wow! With God exalted, your problem becomes small, and the more God is exalted, the smaller that problem grows. The other side of that is that the more you know God, the less prominent the issues in your life become.
By now, you are eager to be still and know God. With God, it is quite easy, because He made His mind plain in the Bible. He is not like the mediums who chirp and mutter. With them, you need an interpreter to know what they stand for, but with God, you only need to read your Bible. Of course, you need to be consistent and attentive when you read. It is similar to what boyfriends and girlfriends used to do before the era of emails and social media
The postman delivers a letter, once in a while, and you read it until the next one arrives. If your friend is not a frequent communicator, the letter is tattered by the time you receive a fresh one. I wonder how many of us realize that the Bible is God’s love letter to us? Is your Bible tattered or on the verge of becoming so? Then you understand the meaning of the verse that says we should be still and that God is God.
Where Is The Contradiction?
Several years ago, we discussed this so-called contradiction in a previous post titled, “You only have one remaining struggle.” The only struggle left for you to master is how to enter into God’s rest, so Psalm 46 and Hebrews 4 are not contradictory. You labor to enter into God’s rest by doing all in your power to know God. For the more of God, you know, the more of His rest (not “your rest,” as some people read it) you enter. So you labor to read your Bible consistently and attentively. But why labor?
It is because reading the Bible is not the same as studying your school textbook. Your textbook has no enemy working to prevent you from studying. On the other hand, the devil, as an enemy, sits behind you each time you open your Bible. He has many tricks to make reading your Bible a real struggle.
Within minutes, he closes your eyelids in sleep, or he distracts you with other thoughts, or keeps you so busy that you forget to pick up the book in the first place. I recall a day at work when that happened to me. I did not read my Bible before leaving home because we usually had to leave home at the crack of dawn to beat the traffic. But that meant we had an entire hour in the office during which I could spend time in the Bible before office hours.
Finally, Be Still And Know God
But I got so busy I totally forgot. Glory be to God for loving me so much that He used one of His many strategies to remind me. At the end of a long day, I got to my car to start the long drive back home, and discovered I had a flat tire. After I made the arrangements to have it fixed, I went back upstairs, grumbling to God. God ensured I knew to be still and know Him by grumbling right back. I had not spent time with Him that day.
Duly chastised, I sat and did what I should have done in the first hour of the day. I made faces at satan because I knew he was the one who had kept me from reading my Bible until God used the flat tire to alert me. Trust me, spending time in the Word of God is a struggle against the devil. It requires labor to enter into the rest of the finished work of redemption. Of course, to know someone, you must not only read their letter, but you also talk to them.
That is all prayer is, a conversation with the Lover of your soul. Imagine never talking to your spouse. You will never truly know them, and that may lead to divorce. Unless you read your Bible and pray (not the yelling or lengthy sort), you may suffer a divorce from Jesus. I pray that never happens to you. To avoid a divorce from God, find time to be still and know that God is God.
Maranatha!
