Every once in awhile you see the term selah written in the Psalms (and in Habakkuk a few times). This is a Hebrew term. Selah was built into Jewish worship – they would pause, grow quiet and reflect on what they had just read or sung. When I first learned this word, it struck me. Then I met a little girl, her name was Selah and she had cerebral palsy. Everything for Selah was slow. She was in my class at camp and with a smile on her face, she hiked everywhere we hiked, and did everything we did – just at a slower pace. She changed my week. She made me selah. And I’m not good at that.

Psalm 46:10 has been playing over in my mind for the last couple of weeks: “Be still and know that I am God.” So this weekend, when I listened to a podcast by Mike Erre, a friend and wise, incredible follower of Christ, I was simply struck by his words. I had to share.

“The phrase “be still” means to go slack, to let drop, to become weak.

Find moments and places and spaces where you go slack, where you let go.

The command is: to be weak, to drop, to let go and know that He is God.

Be still in order to know that He is God.

What do we miss out on because we live lives of such distraction, of such busyness, of such stress? What do we miss out on? Well, I don’t know about you but when I’m absorbed fully in my own life, I get bigger, all my problems get bigger, the feeling I have that I have to solve all my own problems gets bigger and my estimation of God just gets smaller in the process. And so the scriptures invite us into this posture: flop down, be weak, be still, Selah. And KNOW in order to know that He is God.

It’s almost like right-sizing life. I get smaller in those moments, God gets bigger in those moments. And when that happens, what I am wrestling with doesn’t seem so massive. What do we miss because we live lives that are just so crazy, and so noisy and so distracted? We miss having a view of God that is large enough to handle our problems. That is large enough to handle us: our past, our present, our future.”

When I become less, He becomes more. I exist for HIM. He doesn’t owe me anything, but He gave me everything. I am not entitled to any of the blessings He has given me. An attitude shift needs to happen here.