Be Still and Know: God Reigns Over the Nations

This blog post is based on a recent sermon I preached on Psalm 46, exploring God as our true refuge in an uncertain world.

I don't know about you, but I frequently find myself looking through old photos on my phone. I look back at pictures of me from my university days and can't help but question my fashion choices at the time.

Sometimes your Facebook memories are not the most forgiving and can't help but make you cringe a little when you see what you were like many years ago.

Or perhaps, more recently, I find myself looking back at pictures of my kids to see how quickly they have grown up. Looking at how small they once were compared to how big they are now.

Often enough, we can look back at these pictures as a reminder of what life was like then and how things have changed now.

And this reminder of looking to the past is what verse 8 of our Psalm is encouraging us to do. It invites us to do something similar. Not by looking at our own past, but by looking at God's works throughout history.

We are to remember what He has done so that we can trust Him with what He will do.

I'm getting to the age where I can look back at various parts of my life, some of which I found hard, and can see clearly how God brought me through them and had His hand on the situation.

The psalmist invites us to, as verse 8 says, "come and see the works of the LORD", calling us to remember God's mighty acts in history as evidence that He is sovereign. In other words, God is sovereign over history.

We can see in verse 9 how God is the one who has the power to end wars by breaking bows, shattering spears, and burning chariots. Ultimate peace is achieved not by our own human effort but by God's decisive intervention.

So, knowing these fundamental truths from the past, how does this transform our future? In other words, what is the antidote to living a life of uncertainty and chaos in the present? How can we find this security and comfort?

The answer might not be as obvious as you think.

The answer can be found in verse 10: "Be still, and know that I am God." This is our antidote to living in our chaotic world.

"Be still." Two very simple words which bear a lot of weight.

It sounds a little too simple, doesn't it? How are we meant to be still in the storm of life by just "being still"? But if there is one lesson we can learn throughout all of Scripture, it's that when God speaks, things happen.

So, when God says, "Be still, and know that I am God", we can take comfort knowing that this will bring real peace to our troubled storms.

Mark 4 provides a directly relevant example of what this looks like in practice. Verse 39 says:

"He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, 'Quiet! Be still!' Then the wind died down and it was completely calm."

While the disciples were terrified and Jesus was asleep, they woke Him, and He rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And what happens? The powerful, raging storm comes to a stop and it immediately becomes completely calm.

Just imagine what God can do in our lives when we fully come to Him with our troubles and our anxieties.

But let's be clear for a moment. The famous command, "Be still," is not merely an encouragement to relax, put our feet up and stop caring. Instead, it's a call to cease striving and acknowledge God's supreme authority.

It means we are to put down our guard. It means we are to stop trusting in our own ways but to trust in Him alone.

I'm sure this is something many people (myself included) struggle with.

I'm not thinking of specific people in mind when I say this, but perhaps you are someone who spends so much time building your career path.

You obsess about wanting to earn more and more money, for you to invest in a high-gain investment portfolio so you can become financially independent and not have to rely on others.

Or maybe you are someone who cares deeply about what your Instagram profile says about you to the world.

You build a heavily curated list of reels and stories which tries to capture every amazing part of your life online and to sell how great you are and why people need to like you.

In other words, in both these situations, you could be striving for approval, striving for fame, striving for self-sufficiency.

You could very well be striving for all the good things in life but still not striving for Him — the one that matters the most!

It's a call to trust and surrender.

And because of this, we see in verses 10–11 how the psalm concludes with God's promise that "He will be exalted among the nations and throughout the earth."

It's a reminder that eventually, God will rule over all and will receive all the authority and glory. God will ultimately be recognised by every nation and every person — whether that's willingly in worship or unwillingly in judgement.

At the end of the day, God will have the final say. All of it will be seen to. All injustice will be seen to. God will have victory over war and conflict.

And so, verse 11 concludes this Psalm by getting personal for the Christian. It applies the truth of verse 10 personally: the God who will one day be exalted over all the earth is already "with us" and is "our fortress".

If you are a Christian today, because of this news we can have confidence right here, right now. We can have confidence today because God, the sovereign King, the one who has authority over all things, is on our side.

Verse 11 brings the Psalm full circle. If you are a Christian, the God who rules over all nations is also "with you" and remains, as verse 11 says, "our fortress".