This post is from Moms Take Ten episode 152, Parenting in Scripture–Our Ever Present Help, which you can listen to wherever you listen to podcasts or at https://sites.libsyn.com/403493/parenting-in-scripture-our-ever-present-help
We unexpectedly welcomed back one of our kiddos last week. He’s stayed with us a few times over the years and we’ve kept in touch. He even spent a couple days with us over the summer just for fun. But this time his mom was asking for our help. Lots of details, including the timeline, were up in the air as we picked him up. That little ball of anxiety that had laid dormant since we stopped hosting a year and a half ago woke right up. And I found myself working really hard to put it to rest. “I’m okay. We’re okay. It’s going to be okay.” was what I told myself on repeat for two days as we awaited more information. Unknowns are hard, aren’t they?
God, in his kindness and incomprehensible sovereignty, made sure that I had missed enough days of my Bible study to be reading chapter 46 of the book of Psalms that first night. Okay, no God does not make me miss days. Actually, I have missed many days but that day I had skipped ahead because I was too overwhelmed to do the review for the previous week. All that to say, I was reading Psalm 46. And I’ve found myself going back to it over and over. Committing some of it to memory. Just sitting in it for a bit. So, it seemed the perfect passage to share with you as we return to our Parenting in Scripture series. This series is all about looking at the passages in Scripture in light of our parenting–how do they encourage us, how do they challenge us and how do they inform our parenting? This passage I think you will find encouraging.
Psalm 46
1 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
8 Come and see what the Lord has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
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.”
11 The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
All of you listening, I’m sure, have something you could point to in your life that is hard. It could be the unknown of it that brings the anxiety or it could be the knowing that overwhelms. Every day something presents itself to us and our mind and heart start to worry, to pick apart, to stress or even despair over. The psalmist is familiar with this experience. And that is why they use the dramatic imagery that they do to make their point. Even if the earth is giving way, even if the mountain is falling, even if life is shattering, even if all you ever knew is falling to pieces, even then there is a powerful truth for us to hold onto–”God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble.”
I was sitting in church yesterday listening as someone shared about losing their young son to cancer. He talked about the diagnosis, the anger, navigating treatments, the rollercoaster of hope and despair, and finally the saying goodbye. Through the whole story, though, he pointed to God. He emphasized over and over that God was with them in it. That even when they were angry, God was there listening. That through the terrible ordeal of the many, many treatments their son received they saw answers to prayer and found beautiful moments together as a family. That even when the treatment stopped working, that God was still working inside of each of them. Through it all, God was faithful. An ever present help in trouble.
Last week, the kids learned a little more about September 11 at school. That night as we were tucking them into bed, one of them was still trying to wrap his mind around it, and wrestling through the fear of it all. “Are there still terrorists? Are they going to come here?” Those are hard questions to get from our children, aren’t they? Because we recognize that we can’t promise complete safety from everything bad. We are aware of so many risks that they aren’t even aware of. Yet we don’t want us or them to live in fear. “You know what the Bible says?” I asked him. “It says that God is our refuge. Meaning that we can hide in him and he takes away our fear. He’s here with you right now. You can rest with him.”
The psalmist calls all of us to that when he says,
“Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”(v.10)
This isn’t the antsy stillness that we see in our kids during the church service, where their toe is tapping, their hands are fidgeting and we know they’d like nothing better than to get up and play. This isn’t the detached stillness that you and I might be more prone to where we temporarily ease our stress and worry by scrolling social media or watching a show. This isn’t even the quiet stillness of a mama reading her Bible and completing her daily devotion.
The CSB puts it like this, “Stop fighting, and know that I am God,
exalted among the nations, exalted on the earth.” (v. 10)
Stop fighting.
Stop fighting for control.
Stop fighting to fix everything.
Stop fighting in your own strength.
Stop fighting the plans God has for you.
During that weekend, when I was repeating over and over, “I’m okay. We’re okay. It’s going to be okay.” I was trying to stop fighting. The fighting I was experiencing was internal, wanting to regain control instead of having to simply trust. I wanted to figure things out. I wanted to make a plan even though I didn’t have enough information to do so. I wanted to do things that would help me feel better, help me feel more in control of the situation. But I knew that wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing. Instead, I was called to be present with my family and with that sweet little boy. I was called to trust that I would learn more when it was time and we would figure things out as we needed to. I was called to stop fighting. I was called to be still.
But not just stop fighting and do nothing. Not just be still and sit in silence. We are to be still, stop fighting and know that he is God. This is a deep, soul-level knowing. The kind that takes your breath away with the wonder of it but also enables you to breathe more freely than you ever did while you were fighting. This knowing puts things into perspective and makes you wonder why you ever started fighting in the first place. It quiets our fears and brings peace that surpasses understanding.
Don’t we want that for our parenting, for our life?
This God, this wonderful, exalted God, is who the psalmist reminds us is in us. Let’s re-read verse 5 as we end,
“God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.”
This is a verse that I have come back to time and again. Sometimes it very much feels like I am going to fall. Sometimes it all feels like too much. But in Christ, we are more than conquerors and what feels like too much is not too much for him. He upholds us and we are able to continue on. Isn’t that such an encouragement?
With our hosting, it ended up being much shorter than anticipated but it was long enough for me to be reminded of God at work in us, and of the beauty that comes when we say yes to him. Other things in my life aren’t wrapped up so easily. There’s still hard here. but…
I’m okay. We’re okay. It’s going to be okay. Because God is. Because God is with us. Because he is helping us. He is our ever present help in trouble.
Lyssa Stoyko 