Keeping Still

Can you tell what this is a picture of? It is a real photograph rather than a graphic or something done on a computer. It was a photo I took of a star using a powerful camera borrowed from a relative. I had no tripod, so the jerky image was caused by the movement of the lens. Though I tried to hold the camera totally still, the image was retarded by the tiny trembling of my hands. This may be caused by temperature, stress, age or illness. Otherwise, it’s due to the nervous system. It requires muscular force to keep limbs still. Our muscle fibres contract many times a second, and our slight shaking is a sign of that tension. So even the most sedentary of us find it hard to keep truly motionless. In Psalm 46:10, we are told to

Be still, and know that I am God 

Elsewhere in the psalm, words of great change and motion are used: remove, carry, trouble, swell, shake, move. It’s hard for us to keep still when all around is moving and shaking. But God, who ‘changeth not’, calls us to focus on Him, not the agitated clamour of our surroundings. Peter focussed on the waves instead of Christ when he walked on the waters. We, too, focus of life’s froth and bubble instead of the changeless, age-less One, in whom is perfect tranquillity and peace.

The Lord of hosts is with us;

The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

Psalm 46:11