Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
Psalm 46:10
The One Step Daily Devotional is intended to provide just one step each day for your journey with God. Every journey requires water breaks. Here is a water break for you.
Psalm 46:10 invites us to be still, cease striving, or stop. The question is, “stop what?”
We live in a busy society, yes, but the psalmist did not write this psalm to a busy people. If not written to especially busy people, who then does the psalmist write?
While being still or engaging in silence can serve as spiritual practices that may dislodge us from a bewildering pace of rush and anxiety long enough to hear God and be ministered to by Him, this is not exactly what the writer had in mind.* The writer of this psalm spoke in Psalm 46 to a superpower nation intent upon establishing their own peace through war.*
God had other plans. While countries attempt to become sovereign over others, God establishes Himself as Sovereign over all.* Through His mighty acts, God will transform all nations into instruments of His own exaltation.*
What will it take for God to establish Himself above all? The nation in question had to stop trying to elevate themself.*
In this life, we can feel that we must work, manipulate, and win our way into the place of God. There can be many reasons and ways that we do this, but sometimes we find ourselves attempting to exalt ourselves over others because we are seeking safety, peace, stability, or “the good life.” The issue with this is that we cannot give ourselves safety, peace, stability, or “the good life.” When we attempt to, we are trying to replace God because we are trying to provide for ourselves only what God can provide.
God says, “Stop it. I am God, I will not elevate you, but I will elevate myself above all. Want to see it? Just stop your efforts to win. I win.”
The best thing about God winning is that when He wins we win too.
Today, take a step.
Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to pull in a deep breath and stop it. Perhaps today God would have you stop striving to be enough, do enough, or feel enough. Maybe today God doesn’t want you to win the battle in your life, but He wants you to see that He is the winner in your story... and that makes you a winner too.
Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.
Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a water break… we all get thirsty.
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*Goldingay, J. (2006). Baker Commentary on the Old Testament: Psalms 42–89 (T. Longman III, Ed.; Vol. 2, pp. 72–73). Baker Academic.
Wilson, G. H. (2002). Psalms (Vol. 1, pp. 718–719). Zondervan.
VanGemeren, W. A. (2008). Psalms. In T. Longman III & D. E. Garland (Eds.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Psalms (Revised Edition) (Vol. 5, p. 407). Zondervan.
Craigie, P. C. (2004). Psalms 1–50 (2nd ed., Vol. 19, p. 345). Nelson Reference & Electronic.