[Modified transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube[1], April 2020]
When the cracks start to show in my life, can I find peace?
I don’t know how you are coping with social isolation. We have now reached the three week mark and maybe you thought “yeah, we can do this; yeah, three weeks not too bad” and maybe you launched into it with some degree of enthusiasm.
01:03 I don’t know about you but the cracks are starting to show. Perhaps you’re homeschooling and started off with such gusto but you’ve got a run dry of inspiration. Maybe there’s only so many times you can deep clean the kitchen. Perhaps your garden is pretty much sorted for the time being. You start to feel dry. You start to feel as if the cracks are showing, not just in your day-to-day living but in your relationships as well, maybe even with your relationship with God. It’s not that the cracks weren’t there before, it’s just that busyness and variety of life managed to plaster over those cracks. They managed to sustain us even though maybe our relationships weren’t as good as they could be.
02:21 “Be still and know that I am God” – that’s what the psalmist says in Psalm 46. He reminds the followers of God that God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore do not fear even if everything around you is falling apart, even if chaos is at your door. Do not fear because God is in control and as verse 10 towards the end of the psalm says “Be still and know that I am God”.
03:36 For the psalmist the answer was to be still, but you can say “that’s a stupid idea, I mean being still is what’s got me in this trouble in the first place. Being still it what’s giving me time to think and to dwell on the wrong things.” Maybe that’s the answer – it’s the wrong things. The psalmist has asked us to “Be still and to know that I am God”; to be still and know that God is in control, to be still and know that God is our help, to be still and know that God will be exalted in all this, to be still and know that God has a plan, to be still and know that God is with you.
[1] YouTube link: Can I Find Peace?
Bible references: Psalm 46 v10
Music: ‘Be Still and Know’ played by Phil Gwilt on the cello.
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