God's Work Environment

“Be still and know that I am God” (Ps 46: 10).  Every morning I begin my hour of prayer in stillness, using the mantra: “Listen to the stillness. God is at work” or “Be still and know that I am God.”  This morning the thought came to me that when I am talking—sometimes incessantly, rambling on and on, as in the case of political issues—I need to tell myself to be still in order to know that God is God.  As in the Old Testament--through Exodus, the wanderings in the desert, through the divided kingdom (The Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel), through the Exile, the Return from Exile, the Maccabbean Revolt and  in the New Testament through Jesus’ death-- God prevailed in building His Kingdom and remaining true to the covenant He made with Adam and Eve, namely that the serpent’s (Satan’s) head would be crushed. Sin would not prevail. God’s plan will be accomplished and no one will stop that from happening. Even in our day, in our present circumstances, as we listen to the wrangling of the Democratic and Republican parties, the debates, God’s will shall prevail.  I may not realize it but God is at work.  I simply have got to be still and listen. God says to me in Jeremiah 29:11 I have “plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope…”  God has those same plans for the United States, for the world, and it cannot get worse than it did for Israel in Egypt, in Exile, or during the Maccabbean Revolt, nor for Jesus in His passion, death, and resurrection. God has a plan that will not be impeded.

Do I believe that?