Be Still

Several years ago, in one year, three middle­aged women I knew each had a different health problem, which caused each either pain or inconvenience. Each of them prayed for divine healing. Each of them eventually became desperate, said, "I can’t take this any more," and had surgery. In some cases, the surgery made the symptom worse; in other cases, it solved the existing problem and created another, worse, problem. Had each of them known what the result of their desperate action was going to be, they would have decided that they could, in fact, "take this" some more.

Yesterday it struck me that it isn’t only in the area of health that our desperation leads us to make wrong choices. I’m sure we’ve all known of situations (and perhaps it’s our own!) in which a single person can’t stand the loneliness anymore, either rushes into marriage too soon with the "right" person, or marries the "wrong" person, and winds up being far lonelier than before. In fact, it was such a situation that brought this concept to my attention.

My conclusion is that there is only one thing our desperation should lead us to do: seek the Lord.

Unfortunately, we want to take action in our desperation. If we’re desperately hurting, we lash out at someone else to relieve the pain. When we’re desperately lonely, we go to amazing lengths to find someone to dissolve our loneliness. What action we take varies in every case, but one thing I can guarantee: when you get really desperate, you look for action.

In part, this is probably a chemical response. Although I haven’t heard this from a medical authority, my guess is that desperation of any sort triggers the same "fight or flight" response in our bodies as any other type of danger or severe stress. In order to "use up" the hormones at our disposal during those times, we are driven to do something.

This is not rocket science, however, and it should be clear to any intelligent observer that our panic response does not give us good results. When the frying pan gets hot, we always, and I do mean ALWAYS, jump into the fire. In our panic, we do not act in faith, we act in fear. Always. We NEVER make the right choice when we are desperate.

In scripture, we see that the first answer to panic is always, "Be still." We have to be still, so we can hear God’s voice, telling us what the correct action is, and when to take it.

So the real answer is to do whatever it takes for you to get still. It may mean locking yourself in your bedroom, stuffing your face in a pillow, and screaming for half an hour. It may mean jogging five miles alone with God. It may mean verbalizing your feelings to God in a tone of voice that your mother wouldn’t approve of.

Do whatever it takes.

Desperate straights require that you be still.

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