Be Still and Know: Experiencing God Through Stillness and Scripture

Psalms 46:10 (NIV)

¹⁰ He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth.”

Knowing God deeply through the practice of stillness not only aligns our way of thinking with His but it also fosters the spiritual transformation of a new heart. The Holy Spirit reveals to us in Scripture that God intends for us to participate in the Divine Nature of God (2 Peter 1:3-4). This is His aim, priorities, His mind, and His heart. In the Old Testament, God promised to transplant His heart into us and remove the natural heart of stone (Jeremiah 31:33). 

To know God, we must go where He goes and do what He does. Then, we pause to contemplate how we felt as we obeyed. Out of this experience, we still our bodies to imagine the heart of God, knowing that whatever we may have thought or felt gives us a glimpse into His heart and mind, which are eternally pure from the corrupting effects of sin on our hearts and minds. It is here in this stillness that the stony heart in us is replaced by His heart in us.

A new heart and mind also come to us as we practice stillness in His presence, as we read and meditate through the Scriptures. Here, we contemplate not only what God did but His motives and reasoning. His motives reveal the love in his heart, and his reasoning makes clear his philosophy in approaching life. Then, His Word is written upon our minds, but also our hearts. We learn to think like Him, but we also begin to feel what He feels. We begin to know Him truly.

God doesn’t want to stop there. He wants us to participate fully in His nature. It is not enough to think like Him. He wants to give us His heart. As we meditate on our acts of obedience and the Scriptures, the Spirit meets with us to effect heart transformation. We see the love that moves Him to sacrifice so much, to give everything to rescue, restore, and reward us as well as others. Our hearts are opened to His in the stillness of contemplation. He removes the heart of stone and gives us a new heart, His heart. 

We know Him not only in our minds, but in the depths of our souls. We not only know what we are to do each moment, but our desires have been purified, so we now want to do what He directs. This is the power of being still with Him.

Questions to meditate on:

How does the practice of stillness help move our knowledge of God from intellectual understanding to deep, transformative relationship?

What does it mean to “participate in the divine nature,” and how can stillness and Scripture meditation open us to this experience?

In what ways have you experienced God replacing your heart of stone with His heart, and how did that shape your thoughts, desires, or actions?