i am God // week nine

We spent this whole week in the Psalms. It was a remarkably fitting way to spend my reading, since I left on Friday for a women's retreat which was themed on finding contentment in life by centering ourselves in who God is.

This is a recurrent pattern in the Psalms, as I've written about before. To the psalmist there is no other source of comfort, contentment, joy, or peace in the midst of life's suffering than the truth of who God is. My favorite single verse in the book of Psalms says,

Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!
Psalm 46:10

Be still - in Hebrew, harpu: to relax, to go limp, to stop struggling; to let go, collapse, fall, or release.

To rest.

To be at peace, contented - to know that God has done right, that things are as they should be, that I can stop striving for something better or different - why?

Because He is God.

I was brought back to this verse over the weekend when the teaching confronted me with the seemingly small and subtle ways I have allowed discontentment to slither into my heart and life.

One of our discussion questions was, "What is something you expected out of life that you haven't yet received?" I thought about my life. I thought about how much God has given me. I lack for nothing. But I still had an answer, and like all discontentment, it was rooted in embarrassing self-centeredness: "I thought I would have done something world-changing by now."

I thought I would have done something world-changing by now.

I thought I would have done something world-changing by now?!

And I saw that this has been at the root of all of my inner strife and stress and turmoil, all of my outer anxiety and conflict with others and struggle with God.

I expected, however subtly, that my life would be about me. Glorify me. Exalt me.

But I can't have rest until I know that I'm not God - HE is.

That my life is about His glory, not mine; that only He changes the world, and whether or not I play any role at all is entirely up to Him. That regardless of what I "make" of my life, He WILL be exalted.

He is God, and on this truth alone I can freely relax, go limp, stop struggling to do or be or accomplish something great; I can let go of my burdening desires, collapse into His arms, fall on His grace, and release my anxiety. I can rest.

Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!
Psalm 46:10