stillness

Be still and know that I am God Psalm 46:10

Is there any note of music in all the chorus as mighty as the emphatic pause? Is there any word in all the Psalter more eloquent than that one word, Selah (Pause)? Is there anything more thrilling and awful than the hush that comes before the bursting of the tempest and the strange quiet that seems to fall upon all nature before some preternatural phenomenon or convulsion? Is there anything that can touch our hearts as the power of stillness?

There is for the heart that will cease from itself, “The peace of God that passeth all understanding,” a “quietness and confidence” which is the source of all strength, a sweet peace “which nothing can offend,” a deep rest which the world can neither give nor take away, There is in the deepest center of the soul a chamber of peace where God dwells and where if we will only enter in and hush every other sound, we can hear His still, small voice.

- Selected (from Streams in the Desert)

Photo: Evening descends on Crescent Beach, Surrey, BC