For the past few hours I’ve been working on the prayer requests we get by email. I’m sitting here munching down on a peanut butter sandwich at 4:20 a.m. while writing this.  Last night, or a few hours ago, whichever way you want to look at it, I had the privilege of speaking to a few fellow ministers at a meeting and I was reflecting on it.  It seems in the wee hours of the morning things come sharper into focus, with the pressure of the daytime behind me, and the new day’s work not here yet.  I spoke of a subject that was certainly not new to ministers, and that is in Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know I am God”.  At the meeting I spoke of being still in times of trial and hardship and knowing that He is in charge and that He will deliver us, just as He delivered Israel in Exodus chapter 14.  The Israelites had the Egyptian army behind them, and the Red Sea before them.  How did He do that?  Simple, for God, that is,  He parted the sea and they just walked across on dry ground.  It looked like there was no way.  And there wasn’t, until God made a way, just like He will do for you and me. 

     I was just thinking……Jesus referred to Himself as I AM, so….it would be better perhaps if it were said like this; Be still and know I AM God.  He is “I AM”  He is everything you need, everything you could possibly want.  And HE WANTS YOU TO KNOW HIM, PERSONALLY!  You see, when you know someone personally, you know their behavior, their habits, you know if their word is good or not, and if they will do what they say they will do.  When you take time to know GOD personally, you will quickly see He loves you and He is good for His word….EVERY TIME!  It enables you to trust Him, to be still and KNOW He is God.  And of course, God has only one problem to take care of today.  Yours. OOOPS!  Sorry, He said it’s already taken care of!  So much for that.

    You see, we tend to forget that God wants us to know Him when the pressure is on…He wants us to know Him personally…so personally that we lose ourselves in His love and never give a second thought that He would abandon us.  But instead, when the pressure is really on, so many of God’s children do anything but “be still and know I am God”.  They run around in a panic, wondering, How in the world will I get out of this mess?  One of the ministers at the meeting said Gloria Copeland had made a statement like “God even feeds the birds, so if He can feed the birds, He can surely feed us”.  In that instant, I saw in my mind a bird sitting contentedly on a tree branch.  Tell me, have you ever seen a worried bird pacing back and forth on a tree branch, saying, Where am I gonna get a bug?  Where am I gonna get a worm?  What am I going to eat today? What am I gonna do?  No, not very likely.  You see, the birds do something by nature that we have yet to learn….they trust their Creator to keep them fed.  And they sit around singing, to boot!  While we are stressing out, they are eating what bugs them…(pun intended).

    If God feeds the birds, and not one of them falls to the ground without His knowledge, how much more will He take care of us, who are His masterpiece, created in His very own image!  Each of us face trials.  There isn’t anyone immune to them as long as there is a devil around.  What we do with them makes all the difference.  When Job was faced with losing his children, his health, his money, his friends, he trusted God.  What happened?  God restored double to him what the devil stole.  Double for his trouble.  I like that.  You see, Job could have ranted and raved and cursed God, but instead he held onto the only thing he really still had, and that was God.  He KNEW God, from all those times he would “be still and know that I AM God”.  I think Job left us a good example to follow.  So did Moses, and Abraham, and many others who refused to panic when the devil turned up the heat.  King David, who wrote Psalm 46, really knew how to trust God.  How do you trust God?  Just do it.  No matter what it sounds like, or looks like, no matter what kind of bad report the doctor gives you, just do it.  Some people tell me, I’ll try.  Trusting God isn’t something you try, like a taste of soup.  Well, OK, maybe it is…for it is written in Psalm 34:8  O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. 

    And trusting Him comes from being still, taking the time to know Him, and knowing He is God.