“Just as a jar of muddy water settles and becomes clear as it is still, so do we.”

I wrote it down, so I think I got the gist of it. Basically, if you keep stirring up muddy water, it remains murky and opaque. You can’t really see through it and it remains unclear. But once you let it settle and remain still, it becomes clear.

Sometimes, we try to solve the lack of clarity in our own lives by adding more activity and involvement, hoping that more busyness will lead to insight and answers. Maybe what God is teaching you and me in that season is to be still until what is unclear settles and then circumstances become clear.

I think about those times late at night when I’m worked up over perceived relationship strife or work issues. The more I try to resolve it in my head, the more worked up I get. Usually, the only solution is to sleep on it. Typically, I will wake up the next morning with much more clarity than I had the night before.

There’s a reason God tells us to be still. When everything is stirred up, it’s hard to see God at work in the midst of confusion and chaos. Only when we let things settle and quit trying to work everything out ourselves will we finally see and hear God.

I believe that an alternate translation for be still is cease striving. Those are two sides of the same coin — if you be still, you will automatically cease striving. Of course, that means you have to create margins in your schedule and make time for stillness. If you’re a victim of the tyranny of the urgent, you will never find stillness.

“The sound of ‘gentle stillness’ after all the thunder and wind have passed will be the ultimate Word from God” (Jim Elliot).