Be Still: Trusting God in the Middle of Chaos

Elijah Rivers

[calm] Welcome to the show. “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” That is Psalm 46:10. And Marcus, what strikes me every time is that God does not say that in a quiet meadow somewhere. He says it in a psalm where “the earth gives way,” where “the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,” where “the nations are in uproar.”

Marcus Jordan

[questioning tone] Yeah, that phrase — “the mountains fall into the heart of the sea” — that is not mild stress. That’s not, you know, I had a rough Tuesday. That’s creation-level chaos. It’s like the most solid thing you can imagine, a mountain, getting thrown into the ocean. So when God says “be still,” He’s not talking to people whose lives are already tidy.

Elijah Rivers

Exactly. Biblical stillness is not passivity. It is not pretending the trouble isn’t real. And it’s not emotional numbness either, as though faith means you stop feeling. No — this is a deliberate surrender of control. It is the soul, in the middle of upheaval, releasing its grip and saying, “Lord, You are still on the throne.”

Marcus Jordan

[skeptical] Okay, let me try to say it back, because I think this is where people can get crossed up. “Be still” does NOT mean do nothing, ignore bills, skip hard conversations, just float around and call it trust. It means the panic is no longer driving the car. Is that fair?

Elijah Rivers

[warmly] That is fair. Very fair. The command is inward before it is outward. A person may still have to act, decide, work, even grieve. But underneath all of that, there is a settled trust. The believer is no longer acting as if everything depends finally on him. Stillness is what happens when we remember that God is God and we are not.

Marcus Jordan

And that second half — “know that I am God” — that’s the center of it, right? Not just “be still so you can relax.” Not “be still so you can get your blood pressure down.” Helpful, sure, but that’s smaller than the verse. The stillness is tied to KNOWING who He is.

Elijah Rivers

[reflective] Yes. And that knowing is not bare information. It is worshipful recognition. It is reverence. God says, “I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” So the command to be still is really a command to bow, inwardly, before His supremacy. We are being called to quiet ourselves before the Lord who reigns over trembling earth and raging nations.

Marcus Jordan

[softly] That lands a little different when you hear “I will be exalted among the nations.” Because now it’s not just my private anxiety. It’s bigger. Empires, conflicts, headlines, all the loud stuff that makes you feel tiny — God says over THAT, “I will be exalted.”

Elijah Rivers

Amen. And there’s a pastoral tension here that I think many of us know by experience. The anxious heart wants motion. More plans. More words. More checking, more fixing, more rehearsing the worst-case scenario. Anxiety tells us if we move fast enough, think hard enough, speak loud enough, perhaps we can secure ourselves.

Marcus Jordan

[dryly] Yeah. Anxiety loves a spreadsheet. It loves refreshing the same problem every 11 minutes like somehow the answer is gonna pop up because I stared at it harder. [short pause] And to be honest, that can feel productive. That’s the trick.

Elijah Rivers

It is the trick. But Psalm 46 cuts across that instinct. It tells the believer to stand quiet before God’s supremacy. Not because the danger is imaginary, but because the Lord is greater than the danger. The world may feel unstable; He is not. The nations may be in uproar; He is not. Your heart may be shaking; He is not.

Marcus Jordan

[curious] So how do you know the difference between holy stillness and just shutting down? Because those can look similar from the outside. One person is at peace, another person is frozen.

Elijah Rivers

That is an important question. Shutdown is rooted in helplessness. Stillness is rooted in trust. Shutdown says, “Nothing can be done.” Stillness says, “God reigns.” Shutdown collapses inward; stillness looks upward. One is despair wearing silence. The other is faith expressing surrender.

Marcus Jordan

That line — “despair wearing silence” — yeah, that’ll stay with me. Because I’ve had moments where I wasn’t still before God, I was just worn out. But real stillness has some weight to it... some reverence. Like I’m stepping back because the Lord is bigger than my noise.

Elijah Rivers

[softly] That’s right. And often the first act of stillness is simply this: stop arguing with God’s throne. Stop living as though His rule needs your help to remain intact. Be still, and know. Not guess. Not hope vaguely. Know that He is God.

Elijah Rivers

[calm] And that leads us naturally to Philippians 4:6–7: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”