“Be still and know that I am God” has been used widely to bring comfort to the believer in the midst of trying and turbulent times—and understandably so. Who would not be comforted by knowing the attributes of God. A God who is all powerful, all knowing, and is present in every place known or unknown to mankind. He can see the depths of a man’s heart and can hear the sound of a sparrow falling to the ground in the midst of an undiscovered forest. He holds the stars in His hand millions and millions of light years from our inhabited planet. If a super nova took place somewhere at the edge of the universe and no one knows of it, He is still glorified. Our God is a sovereign God. He certainly has the means to be sovereign over every creeping thing that ever crawled the earth.
Psalm 46:10 speaks rather loudly to the nations as our God “will be exalted among the nations”. He ceases wars. He starts them. All for His glory. In the midst of a personal crisis, God tests our faith not because He doesn’t know the result of the test. Rather, it is a test to remind us of our need for God. He will perform this test over and over again if necessary to grow our character. Strong and courageous people have been celebrated in the media for their tenacity and self-help abilities. However, when our God tests us, we become more dependent on Him. He doesn’t put us through trials to make us more self-dependent. Rather, when we emerge from the valley of darkness, we will inevitably realize how weak we really are. How feeble and needy we can be. God makes us realize the reality of our dependency on Him.
I often make promises to God telling Him that I would never look away from Him. But then He made me realize how easy it is for me to backslide into self-reliance which resulted in my own sin of pride. He strips everything away in my moment of weakness. It was a “rooster-crowing” moment. He made me internalize again and again that to depend on God is a gift rather than a will-power. Human exertion, in this sense, seems to not win so much favor with God.
In much the same manner, the nations have backslidden into self-reliance. We arm ourselves with the most devastating missiles. We take pride in growing computing capabilities. We manufacture new nanomaterials to deliver anti-cancer drugs. Yet, one thing we have forgotten is how weak and needy we really are. Perhaps, this is a season of coming before the Creator and admitting our feebleness once again.
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