It’s Monday morning, and Jacob is already running late. His boss has scheduled yet another ‘urgent’ meeting, traffic is at a standstill, and his phone won’t stop buzzing with emails. As he bangs his steering wheel in frustration, he notices a small, hand-painted sign on the side of the road that reads, “Be still and know that I am God.” He scoffs at it. “Who has time to be still?” he mutters as he accelerates the moment the light turns green.
Jacob’s life is a whirlwind of meetings, deadlines, and responsibilities. Between work, keeping up with family expectations, and his constant fear of failing, he’s always on edge, always chasing the next task. He’s convinced that if he can just get ahead, maybe he’ll finally find some peace. But it’s been years, and the peace never comes.
By Wednesday, things have only gotten worse. His big presentation at work flopped, his car broke down, and to top it all off, his girlfriend has stopped responding to his texts. As he waits for the tow truck, Jacob glances up and, to his disbelief, sees another
Be Still and Know that I am God
sign plastered on a nearby utility pole. “Why is this everywhere?” he groans. “What does that even mean?”
Thursday night rolls around, and Jacob’s patience is running thin. He’s in his small, cluttered apartment, trying to fix his laptop, which decided to crash right when he needed it most. The frustration is mounting, and in his anger, he kicks over a pile of books that his grandmother had gifted him years ago. As the books scatter across the floor, one lands open. It’s an old Bible, and there it is again, staring back at him in bold letters:
“Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
Jacob freezes. For a moment, everything else fades away. He hears his grandmother’s voice echoing in his mind, “Jacob, sometimes you need to be still to hear God’s whisper.” He remembers how she would sit by the window, quietly humming hymns, no matter how chaotic life seemed to get. “It’s nonsense,” he tells himself, but deep down, he feels a tug he can’t quite ignore.
By Friday afternoon, Jacob’s exhausted. He’s given up on trying to fix everything and decides to visit his grandmother’s old house. It’s been years since he last went, and as he walks through the overgrown garden, he feels a strange sense of calm. He finds himself at the edge of a small pond, the same one where he used to fish with his grandmother as a child. The water is perfectly still, reflecting the sky above, and for the first time all week, Jacob stops moving. He just…sits.
As he watches the ripples gently spread across the pond, he feels something shift inside him. He takes a deep breath and hears a faint memory—his grandmother’s voice, so clear it’s almost as if she’s sitting beside him: “You don’t have to do everything, Jacob. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is be still.”
The sun begins to set, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold, and for the first time in years, Jacob lets go. He stops worrying about the emails, the deadlines, the expectations, and just *breathes.* In that moment, he understands. He doesn’t need to have all the answers or be in control. He doesn’t need to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.
The message clicks: *“Be still and know that I am God.”*
Jacob whispers the words aloud, feeling each one sink deep into his heart. He realizes that being still doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means letting go of the frantic need to control everything, trusting that God is there, working in ways he can’t always see. It means believing that even in the chaos, there’s a purpose, a plan that’s greater than his.
As he leaves his grandmother’s house that evening, Jacob feels lighter. He returns to his apartment and, instead of diving straight back into the chaos, he sits by the window with a cup of tea, just like his grandmother used to do. For the first time in a long time, he feels God’s presence, not in a booming voice or grand gesture, but in the stillness, in the quiet moments that he’d been too busy to notice.
And from that day forward, whenever life gets overwhelming, he remembers to pause, to breathe, and to trust. To be still and know.