Failure

..written somewhere around September '06..

In Acts 13, Paul and Barnabus and the other believers had come to the end of any earthly ambition. They were fasting and praying, and worshipping God. One would think that they would be out canvassing the neighbourhood, and making plans for apostolic conventions. But at this time, they did not worry at all about the work of God; it was not the cry of their hearts, because God had not given them that cry within their hearts. After Paul received this directive, though, he was in "birth pains" until the churches he discipled became fully formed in Christ. God needed that place in his heart where not only did he not care about his own ambitions, but he also didn't care about what might be construed as God's ambitions. He only had to follow God's directive to "Be still, and know that I am God." 

It's like Moses, when he tried to free his people with his own passion, by killing the Egyptian slave master, and the people he was trying to emancipate responded with scorn. He had to wait forty years, in exile, tending sheep in the wilderness; by which time he was utterly dispassionate about his life and "calling." It wasn't until God saw Moses reach this point that He called him, and it is later written of Moses that he was the meekest man on the face of the Earth, despite all of his exploits for God.

If you run with the wind, you can't feel it blowing. But if you stop and stand still, you can feel that it is not the influence of your own running that is rippling your clothes, but the influence of the wind. So if we assume we are running with the will of God, we might actually be running away from it, because all that God really wants us to feel sometimes is His presence.

The verses directly following "Be still and know..." in Psalm 46 are "I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." The exultation is a direct result of the stillness that preceded it.