WordLive - Year OneSample

Prepare: Can you remember a tough time in your life? What got you through? Focus on God This psalm opens with the familiar words ‘God is our refuge and strength’ (v 1). It closes with the same idea (v 11), and verse 10 advises us to ‘be still, and know that I am God’. Here are two key thoughts, framing the psalm, and they provide great advice for us when we are facing uncertainty or upheaval. But how can we ‘be still’ and ‘know’ God as our refuge? It’s often not as simple as it sounds! Here the psalmist has clearly seen turmoil, in the form of natural disasters (vs 2,3) as well as military battles (vs 6,9). And yet his focus is not on the disasters themselves, but on the God who rises above them (vs 4–9). Trust through turmoil We may only have experienced disaster secondhand through the pictures on our TV screens, but most of us know all too well the reality of inner turmoil. We can learn a lot from the psalmist here. The more we focus on what God is doing in the world around us, the less we will be rocked by the areas of turmoil where we cannot (yet) see him working. And instead of being transfixed by fear, like rabbits caught in the headlights, we can begin to become people who are ‘stilled’ by our trust in God. Respond: Take time to ‘be still’. Think about a time when God has saved you from trouble. Perhaps make your own prayer from verse 2: ‘I will not fear even if ...’ http://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2012-12-02