06/04/2025
God never forsakes us, but this morning we will contemplate the fear of His abandonment that can drive us. We will think about a particular time of doubt, and the routine nature of our lives that made us feel alone. When we are saved by our Lord Jesus, and God begins to move powerfully in our lives, we feel their grandeur and know intuitively that God has a great plan for us. In times such as this, times of excitement, challenge, and interspersed with suffering, we feel the Lord’s presence in a mighty way. This makes it easy to know God is with us because we feel Him, and are working with Him, but can we handle those times when God desires for us to be still, and why does He ask us to do this? Why is this so important?
“Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
Hebrews 13:5 KJV
Pastor Oswald Chambers realized how hard the quiet times were in his life, and he wrote about it. Here are his words...
"Sometimes it is not difficulty that makes me think God will forsake me, but drudgery. There is no hill difficulty to climb, no vision given, nothing wonderful or beautiful, just the commonplace day in and day out - can I hear God's say-so in these things?" - Oswald Chambers
Pastor Chambers is right. Constantly doing things with the Lord makes trusting in Him easy and natural, but the quiet times are also a part of our nature... and God’s. What is the purpose and lesson in them?
When I was a young man and working hard at my job to make my mark, I had the opportunity to work side by side with a Vice President at my company. We worked through a project and became friends as we met and worked on a daily basis, but eventually the project was completed, and he moved on to the next big thing while I was left to run this important part of the business that we had developed together. Not seeing him each day left me with a feeling of loss. I had enjoyed the excitement, and his friendship, but now I was left alone.
We have times like this in our faith as well. There are great times of incredibly active servitude in which we feel so close to God that the presence of His Holy Spirit energizes us. We have a job to do, and we go to work with Him every day! Then something happens... God tells us to be still, and we feel lost in the silence. The energy and excitement, that were once like a drug to us, have waned, and we find ourselves craving that sense of closeness. In truth, God is right there with us, but He wants us to learn and to do something different... to be still, and to celebrate Him without the need for all the excitement and fanfare.
“Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”
Psalms 46:10 KJV
We all quote this scripture, but are we good at being still? Is this one of the greatest challenges to our walks of faith? Do we begin to doubt His presence in the stillness? Do we feel He has left us? Well, although we like to quote this scripture, many of us don't like to live it, and in the silence of such moments we should read on and contemplate the very next verse in this passage...
“The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.”
Psalms 46:11 KJV
Some of us just don't know how to be still and find that our entire self-worth is wrapped up in the action involved in what we are doing. As a matter of fact, we are so intensely focused on doing things that we overlook or ignore our relationships with Him in our lives. God doesn't want us to do that; so, He tells us to be still and know that He is God. This is a quiet time of getting to know Him fully.
I have known highly successful people and many of them are great at business, but they are a total mess in their personal lives. They never take the time to be still and build those all-important relationships. Sure, they took extravagant vacations and lavished gifts upon their children and wives, but amidst those goal-oriented activities they neglected the all-important ingredient of being still with them, loving them, and knowing them as something more than an accomplishment. On the surface these men and women looked fine, but in truth they were strangers in their own homes.
God wants us to have quiet times with Him, but for us to be successful at this we need to exhale and listen to Him as He breathes. We need to know God at a level that we believe is routine and commonplace. He wants us to know much more than what He is... He wants us to understand and care about WHO He is. This comes with intimacy and is perfected in the quiet times.
Married couples develop intimacy and closeness in whispers, in gentle touches, and their slow warm togetherness. When we have these times of stillness with God, we need to stop looking for the next big thing and be comfortable sitting with Him and just listening to Him breathe peace into us. In times when the routine and commonplace challenge us, we need to pray that our addiction to action will be overcome and that the quiet breathing of God will teach us about experiencing a deeper life with Him. Are we ready to do this in our family lives? Are we ready to experience a deep personal relationship with God?
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for all of the big things we do together, but what I love the most are our quiet times together when I get to know you best. Lord, help me to become better at being still and knowing that you are God; help me to hear you breathing in and out in my life and feel the calm peace that you bring me. Holy Father, never let me mistake the quiet times as being lesser times in my faith... help me to realize that they are in fact the most important moments and lead me towards spending eternity with you. In our quiet comfort we become much more than partners, we become one, joined at a level of intimate relationship that will sustain us for all time… for all of eternity. Jesus, I know that it isn't what I do each day in service to you and our Father, but why I do these things, and knowing your heart and the will of the Father, that mean so much. Let the quiet that you found while away from your disciples be just as important to me in my walk of faith as it was to you in your relationship with them. On the day of judgement, I don't want to hear you say to me "I never knew you." Lord, perfect me in the silence, stillness, and peace. Jesus, teach me to be still, and as we pause there in the calm, listening to each other breathe and the whispers of our Heavenly Father, let me come to know you both more completely.
Amen.
“Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
Matthew 7:22-23 KJV
“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah”
Psalm 46:10-11 ESV
Rich Forbes