Be Still and Know: A Crisis-Ready Vision of God

2:31 Let's pray. Father, I pray in these moments that you would open our eyes to see your bigness, your strength, your nearness. I pray that this psalm would not be external to us, but become increasingly part of us. Pour it into us. Weave it into our hearts. Shape us with this vision of who you are. We need it for everyday life. We need it for our trouble. we need it to have an instinct of soul that doesn't turn in a hard moment to what we do or give up with passivity but goes godward to you And so would you feed us, Father, shape us, form us, comfort us as your people with this vision of you in Psalm 46, in these moments together.

3:33 In Jesus' name we pray, amen. I wonder if you've ever had a particular moment or season in your life that you would talk about as a crisis moment I hear being here in San Gabriel that some of you may think immediately of January in whatever degree that was a crisis for you however close that was to you or people you know and love or you may think of other crisis moments. I think of one that was very difficult with a child of mine in the womb. I think of friends who went through the devastating loss of an infant. I think of a particular season in my work in ministry life that was a crisis moment.

4:32 You may have other crisis moments. You may think in particular of January. You might be in one right now in a room of this size. There are perhaps many who are in a kind of crisis moment. And I hope that the vision of Psalm 46 sustained, I know this, sustained many in this room in the January crisis, is sustaining you now. And we don't know, I don't know, you don't know when the next crisis moment is coming. It might be a phone call or text message this afternoon.

5:07 And so we come to Psalm 46 and we have a chance to eat, to ingest, to have Psalm 46 and this crisis ready, vision of God become more a part of who we are. As you think about that crisis you've walked through, perhaps you would say it felt like the ground beneath your feet was shaking. You might describe it as your world was being turned upside down. In times like that, we reach for catastrophic language. We talk about the earth moving and shaking. These big things, we got to talk in big ways about it to communicate the upheaval of soul. And that's what's going on in Psalm 46. These uncertainties of the soul are expressed in these cataclysmic categories. It could be a national crisis.

6:08 Maybe we felt that at certain times and in certain ways. That can whip up our anxieties. it might have been a national crisis or civic crisis in Psalm 46 but a national crisis playing out on our screens and news feeds remote far away that is far more distant and less significant than a personal crisis your friend your family your neighborhood your home your work, your life. psalm 46 was composed in a time of crisis and it is preserved for us today by god for our many crises i want to have this ready i want you to have it ready and the way it helps us is by giving us a crisis ready vision of our god and the specific crisis that gave birth to Psalm 46 isn't named, which doesn't satisfy our curiosities, but it does point us to this timeless vision of God.

7:16 I'm kind of glad I don't know the original context because I might get too lost in that crisis and be slower to apply it to our crises. These words are not written for just one moment in the history of God's people. They are ready made for our crises today. So on 46, cast this vision in two life or death threats.

7:42 The first, and maybe this was the original threat, is hostile nations. They're threatening Jerusalem. So verse six says, the nations rage, the kingdoms totter. And then in verse nine, we hear of war, bows, spear, War chariots. That might be the carts they bring up for siege works. Hostile armies out there. You see the carts coming forward. They're gonna scale the walls. They're gonna use these, gonna build siege towers and come over our walls. The second threat is nature. The earth and mountains. Those are typically images of stability. and they're shifting.

8:37 And we don't worry about the ground shifting in Minnesota as much as you may in California. We know this. Verses two and three mention how the earth gives way. The mountains are moved into the heart of the sea. Its waters roar and foam. The mountains tremble at the sea's swelling. so the stable secure earth and the mountains are being overtaken by restless raging unstoppable dangerous seas it's a picture of natural cataclysm perhaps even a end time crisis psalm 46 will have us ready for the end times when the great cataclysms come psalm 46 will have us ready. And into this particular chaos, into this crisis, these life or death threats on the city of God's people, verse two says, amazingly, we will not fear. Look at verse two, put your finger there, I want you to see it for yourself. All this cataclysm of nations and nature, Verse two, therefore, we will not fear.

9:57 That's what I want in my next crisis. It doesn't say we won't sorrow. It doesn't say we won't grieve. It doesn't say we won't cry. but you can say with this vision of God, we will not fear. and that's how God means to help us with this psalm to displace fear in our harm with confidence in our God to give stable ground underneath our feet even in crisis if God's people can live by faith and without panic when the ground shifts when the seas rage When the nations rage, we can face any crisis with confidence.

10:53 So whatever trouble comes, Psalm 46, very practically, with its first word, gives us the first place to go. I know when something comes. You get the text message, that news, the devastating news, it begins to break on you. And there's a couple of reactions. One is I gotta do something. I gotta put my energy to it. I got this agency. That's a response. I gotta do something. I gotta fix this. The other response is devastation, passivity.

11:29 And Psalm 46 gives us the kind of response we want to work into our soul. I want this reflex in my soul. God. verse one God is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble this psalm is going to ring out again and again with mentioning God right not just putting him implicitly I'm gonna say it again and again verse four this it's the city of God verse five God is in her midst verse five again God will help. Verses seven and 11, he's the God of Jacob and his covenant name, Yahweh. In our English, that's where it says the Lord, Lord in all caps. That's his covenant name, Yahweh. That's verses seven and eight and 11.

12:25 as if the psalmist is holding back with kind of a dramatic flair his personal covenantal name. God, God, God, God, God, Yahweh, Yahweh. The name revealed to his people, those who know him and take refuge in him. And then there's the all-important verse 10, our coffee mug verse.

12:55 Be still and know that I am God. So that's where we're heading. That's where we're going in this message in these next few moments. Stop raging, stop scurrying, stop your hurrying, cease your frantic efforts, be still and know that he's God. but this is really important. Don't just bow, do bow. Don't just bow, bow and know. Know this God, know him. Know him for the first time. Perhaps you're in this room and you say, I don't know him yet. And Psalm 46 is a call. Be still and know that he's God. Know him for the first time. or learn it afresh. May God work it deeper in our souls that it would be a reflex for us when the waves of crisis break, that we would know him as our covenant God like Jacob knew him, and that we would know him all the more as our covenant God in Jesus.

14:10 Don't just know him, but be glad in him. if God can handle the world's ultimate undoing and the nations raging against his own people, God can handle your crisis. He can help your trouble, however catastrophic it seems. This Psalm, this vision of God will always be ready because it tells us about our God. this is what the psalm's offering us this morning this is what it offers you the psalm is offering you god not a fix to a circumstance not a quick answer to trouble the psalm's offering god which is what you really need in your crisis so what i want to look at here this morning is three pillars that uphold this vision of god I want this vision of God in me.

15:14 I want it in you. I wanna know these three pillars of Psalm 46 that uphold this vision so I'm ready for my next crisis, whether this afternoon or a couple years from now. So three pillars. Number one, our God wields infinite strength. Our God wields infinite strength. That's one of the overwhelming effects of this psalm. It just comes again and again. I think it made us the main effect. It communicates to our souls, soul, you're God's strong. He's infinitely strong.

15:56 Some call this a psalm of confidence. It's a good label for it. By rehearsing God's strength, his people displaced their fears based on lies, based on our short-sightedness, based on our forgetfulness. We displace those fears with confidence in our God. We remember who he is, which is why Martin Luther loved this psalm.

16:23 Donnie did a great job getting a mighty fortress to start us off this morning. This is the psalm that inspired a mighty fortress. The great battle hymn of the Reformation as Luther faced crisis after crisis after crisis. Then we went back to Psalm 46. In the face of the raging seas around him, landlocked in Germany, but feeling the raging seas proverbially. God was strength to Martin Luther. He'll be strength to you. He is strength himself. And we are so quick to forget this. We need it. We need the right reminders to rehearse it. So if you were to try to depict God's strength to someone, a friend, family member, maybe somebody at work, maybe a child, trying to depict, like show them God's strong, how would you go about doing that?

17:21 Well, I mean, it's one thing to just say, God's strong. it's nothing to show it to give some kind of concrete expression to give an image or a picture of God in his strength so let me give you four glimpses here of God in his strength we're still number one he wields infinite strength here are four quick glimpses of that strength to make it more concrete that's how the psalm does it the first two of them are in verse one just comes right out of the gate. Here's two images. The rest of the Psalm is going to expand this banner that comes out in verse one. God is our refuge and strength. And how I take that is that he both protects his people and empowers his people. So the refuge is defensive. It's a place of protection or safety.

18:21 I don't know if we have any Lord of the Rings fans here. You may be a little shy to put a hand up in public for that. I want you to know you're welcome here. I'm a Lord of the Rings person too. When I hear about a refuge, I think of Helm's Deep in the two towers. So the armies are coming from Saruman and the people of Rohan retreat to the keep, back to the refuge. It's a place to be safe. It's to go for defense, to hold out long enough until help might come.

19:02 What about strength then? So that's refuge. What about strength? I think I would take strength as a more inner empowering. So if the refuge is exterior and it's defensive, strength would be empowering from the inside strength given to the soul to hold on you not only need the external refuge and protection you need inner strength to keep going and not give up keep walking keep breathing keep fighting so refuge and strength are outward and inward it's defensive and offensive these are the first two depictions of god's strength in Psalm 46, the external strength of his providence to protect, the internal strength of his spirit to hold us fast on the inside. How about a third image then of strength? That's the last part of verse six. He utters his voice, the earth melts.

20:04 God doesn't need fire to melt the earth. He doesn't even need hands and arms. He doesn't need tools. He doesn't need lasers. This is an amazing picture of strength to just say the word. He just says the word and the earth melts. He only needs his voice because he is God. He only says the word and it's effective to accomplish what he means.

20:44 The power of our God is seen in the power of his word. We expect hand power, weapon power, visible power. and God excels it with the invisible verbal power of the word.

21:07 Just like he spoke the world into being by his word and then he spoke the word into order by his word and he can dissolve the world into chaos by his word with his simple voice if he chooses and with his voice, with his word, he can dispel fear from the hearts of his people.

21:32 That's what Psalm 46 is doing and will do in our lives. Psalm 46 is a word. It's more powerful than bows and spears and planes and bombs because it's a word from God to dispel fear in a heart. You can't do that with an external weapon.

21:57 You just put fear in hearts with that. Fourth image then, verse nine. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow, shatters the spear, burns the chariots with fire. In other words, God defeats the enemies of his people. no matter how fierce and strong and weaponized and terrible the enemy is, when he's ready, God just says, enough. He doesn't have to run out on the battlefield waving his hands, enough, enough, enough. He just says, be still.

22:44 That's enough. Russia, Putin, that's enough. America, that's enough. Israel, Palestine, that's enough. When he's ready, he says enough. and someday he will say the final enough and there will be no more war there will only be peace and God will do it with his infinite strength so the first pillar of this crisis ready vision of God is his infinite unassailable strength he is sovereign that's that's a nickname for pillar number one. God is sovereign. He does as he pleases. None can stay his hand or even ignore his word when he speaks it with effectiveness.

23:39 Number two then, our God attends to us with care. He attends to us with care, which is amazing. given his strength. That is, it's amazing if you're on his side. that's fearful and it should be fearful if you're against him. If you're on the other side, if you're on the enemy side against the God of infinite strength.

24:10 But if you're on his side and he attends to you with care, verse one, he's our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. He's not only strong and sovereign with infinite strength, but he's present. He's near to help in our trouble. And he's not just present, but very present. He's attentively present. He's not scrolling his phone and ignoring your prayers. He's attentive in his nearness. In other words, he's alert to his people. He's eager and ready to help his own. He's not only able to help when he chooses, he's eager to help his people who are in Jesus Christ as Pastor Steve prayed.

25:03 And he's near, he's present, he's accessible to hear our prayers and know every single detail of our lives. He knows our crises in detail more than we know the details of our crises. So verses four and five then expand for us what it means that God's a very present help. Look at verses four and five. there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the most high. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns. And there's several pieces here, verses four and five. Precious stuff. Let's see if we can take it apart, put it back together. The river in verse four is not the only mention of water in Psalm 46.

26:02 Remember what the other water is that we've already seen in Psalm 46? The sea, that's different water than a river. The sea is restless, it's unstable, it's dangerous, it's chaotic, it's threatening water, especially for Israelites. Israelites, they weren't comfortable on the sea like the Philistines and the Greeks. They're land people. We are land people, Israelites. And the sea is chaotic. That's not what we do. We do land.

26:34 The sea was chaotic and dangerous. But now we have a different water. And the Israelites were very familiar with this water and loved this water. A river. River is, it's got the riverbed. You know where it's going. It's predictable. It's fresh water, hopefully. River, and it's life-giving. And if you have a river in a city that's under siege, it keeps the city alive. While there's the foreign armies attacking. And this river in the city of God, while the city's in crisis, is so precious that it doesn't just keep the city alive, but it makes the people glad. You see that? verse four it makes them glad that is so awesome in our crisis to not only be alive to not only keep the faith but this is a miracle that the spirit of God does in his people in a crisis to make them glad to give them joy the kind of joy that would sustain them like Jesus who went to the cross for the joy set before him.

27:47 How did Jesus get through his crisis? the river made him glad. The river of the Holy Spirit in his soul made him glad for the joy set before him, he endured the crisis. So the river is ordered and life-giving. Even in the midst of the crisis, the spirit of God can provide gladness to help us hold on. There's joy even in pain and threat. we don't just survive in Christ. We might thrive in a season of crisis. Our God as our refuge and strength doesn't only get us through, but gives us joy. And in that very joy gets us through the crisis.

28:44 But the river here raises an important question for us. Where does this happen? I want this. I want the life-giving. I want the making glad. I want the safety. Where do I need to go for it? And the answer in Psalm 46 is there's a particular city, a particular place where God makes his people happy with his life-giving water. It's not just any city. It's Zion. It's Jerusalem. The particular place that God chose and covenanted to be in her midst so that she shall not be moved.

29:24 This is important for us to see as Christians as we read the Psalm. Because no longer is there a particular earthly place where we go to for refuge that God has covenanted his security and protection on. Now we have a particular person who we go to for refuge, where God's blessing and covenant keeping safety abide, his son.

29:53 So Christians do not rally to a particular location. We rally to a particular person as our refuge, our strength, our very present help in trouble. We don't only have the instinct of crisis comes, don't engage my energy, don't become passive, but God, we don't even have the instinct to go Godward. We also have the instinct to say, Jesus, Jesus, help me. Jesus is the covenant name we have in the New Testament. and those who call on his name do form a particular entity called the church the church is so important in our crisis the first instinct is not my scurrying not my giving up going godward and then i need the people with me and around me who also say Jesus helped, Jesus helped, Jesus helped.

30:57 So we go, Jesus helped, and then together, we care for each other. We provide practical needs. We love each other. We uphold each other. Our faith is strengthened. He means to uphold our faith. Hold us fast as we sang, how? A really important means is each other. And not just fly by night, in and out Christian relationships, but a covenant people together who said, I'm gonna covenant to be with you in the hard times. When the crisis comes, anybody can do fun times, happy times, go to Disneyland together. Anybody can do that as a friendship. When crisis comes, people go, unless they're covenanted and say, I'm making the covenant to you. I'm gonna be church to you, you be church to me. So we're crisis ready.

31:47 Verse two spoke of mountains being moved into the sea. Verse six speaks of kingdoms tottering. That is kingdoms being moved, same language. So nature's moved, nations are moved. And verse five says that God's people, his church, his chosen city, his chosen people and his beloved son shall not be moved. And part of that is that together we're not moved. Not just as individuals out in the wilderness, on your own, together, we won't be moved. This doesn't mean that God's people never enter into trouble. That we won't be moved doesn't mean there's no trouble. This Psalm, with all of its confidence and its strength and its nearness and the eagerness of God, never promises you, never promises me that we will be spared crisis.

32:45 In fact, in giving us this crisis-ready vision of God, it assumes we will have our crises. They're coming. That's why it's getting us ready. This is coming. It readies us for crisis. And in the crisis, God's help is coming. But it's not coming on our timetable. That's verse five. God will help her when morning dawns. I love that phrase. in Exodus chapter 14, God's people are seeking to escape slavery in Egypt. They got their backs up against the Red Sea.

33:42 No life-giving river, no fresh water. Got our backs on the Red Sea. And the Egyptians are bearing down on them with 600 chosen chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt. What do the people do? They panic. This is just expected. This is natural human reflex, panic. This is a crisis indeed. There's no walled city. There's no fresh water. And into this crisis, Moses, prompted by God, says these words to the people. See how much this sounds like, be still. He says, fear not. stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today.

34:38 And then he lifts his staff and he parts the sea, God parts the sea and God's people walk through on dry land. And what happens? The Egyptians follow. They do. Verse 27 of Exodus 14, Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the sea returned to its normal course, get this, when the morning appeared.

35:14 God coordinated the break of the morning with the deliverance of his people. You feeling darkness? You gotta see at your back? I will bring the morning when the morning should come in my timing and it's coming he will bring you out of the darkness he will bring you out from your back against the sea when the morning appeared and as the Egyptians fled into it the Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea Thank you. J.R.R. Tolkien got this.

35:55 And it might be the most moving moment for me. If not in the books, then in the films. At the end of the second film, The Two Towers, Gandalf says to Aragorn, He says, look to my coming at first light on the fifth day.

36:22 At dawn, look to the east. And so they're in the refuge. They've gone into the interior part of the refuge. The enemy's coming, they've built the siege works, they've broken through the wall. They're right outside the last keep. and Aragorn says to Thaoden, king of Rohan, ride out with me. Instead of just sitting here and waiting to die, get on your horse, grab your sword, we'll throw the doors open and we'll ride out. And at that moment, they agree to ride out.

37:00 Gimli the dwarf looks out and he sees it's morning. the light's coming and they ride out. And at the top of the hill, as the sun rises in the east, is Gandalf with countless horses ready to ride down and destroy the orcs. Tolkien got that from the Old Testament, from the morning dawning at the Red Sea. And Psalm 46 promising, God will help her when the morning dawns. the morning's coming.

37:42 They didn't have watches then. They weren't sure like, you know, is it midnight? Is it 2 a.m.? Is it 3 a.m.? I don't know when it's coming. I know the morning's coming. I know help's coming and God will bring his help in his perfect timing. So for every crisis that you face in Christ, with all its darkness and its uncertainty, God has a dawn designed for you. There will be no crisis for those in Christ that will endure without a dawn.

38:15 He will help you when morning dawns. Your dawn will come. God's help doesn't mean that you'll be kept from crisis, but that he will keep you through your crisis. In his perfect timing, when the dawn comes, he rescues his people from their trouble, having preserved them through the long night, which leads to our third and final pillar. So his infinite strength and his attentive care and nearness. And now number three, finally, our God will exalt himself. This might be surprising.

39:03 I thought these were comforting pillars. Strength and nearness. What's this? God will exalt himself. How's that comforting? when you understand it, this is the best comfort of all. This is the bedrock comfort. So don't miss this. If God's infinitely strong and attentively present and ready to help, why do we need his self-exaltation? And why at the very height of the Psalm, If you're tracking with the psalm emotionally, this is the climax. Verse 10's the climax. It's all ramping up to verse 10. This is the main offering of Psalm 46. right after the be still and know, God says, I will be exalted.

40:05 Why? How does God's own declaration that he himself will be exalted comfort our souls and feed our confidence? To answer that, let's get verse 10 in its context. Let's go back here one more time, verse 10. Verse eight issues a challenge to these raging nations, these enemies of God. They're setting themselves up as God's foes like the Egyptians did. In verse eight, it's almost like a taunt. Let me talk to you enemies, listen up enemies. Just like Goliath taunted God's people. Psalm 46 is taunting God's enemies.

40:49 But it's also to be overheard by God's people and it's a kind of invitation to God's people. So verse eight says, come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. Enemies, be warned.

41:10 Friends, be emboldened. See the power of this God. Come behold his works. Remember, all he has to do is say the word. and as you saw in verse nine when he chooses in his perfect timing he makes his morning dawn he makes wars cease and breaks bows and shatters shields and burns chariots and seed works with fire in other words it is a lost cause to set yourself up against this god what you're gonna do? Build a spear?

41:52 Shatter your spear. Construct your bow? Break your bow with his word. Verse 10 then issues another word of invitation. It's a warning to the nations, an invitation to his people. And this is the climactic statement of the Psalm. Verse 10. raging seas, shaking earth, raging nations, shaking people. And he says, be still and know that I am God. you catch that change of voice there between the invitation and warning of verse eight and now the invitation and warning of verse 10 it's great to have the psalmist say it in verse eight verse 10 God himself speaks now God says it he says the word he utters his voice he melts the rebellion and melts the fears of his people he speaks into the chaos and simply says be still that is lay your weapons down cease your warring cease your deconstruction Cease your plotting.

43:16 Cease your disorder. Cease your hurry. Be still. That's first a rebuke to the nations, to the turbulent world, to the unbelieving. However, it's also a word to us as God's people who hear him say that word to our foes and then we read it in our Bibles. so be still church be still those who claim this god and have him in jesus you need not be anxious you need not fear you need not go into a frenzy in your crisis to help yourself and save your family and take your country back be still and know that he is god rest from all your worldly diversions and distractions and discouragement and look up be still and in that stillness own that you are not god and you can be happy about that.

44:31 That's humility. Humility says he is God and I'm happy about that. He made me to be that way. I'm a human. I'm a creature. And at the very basic nature of what it means to be a human is to say he's God, I'm not, and I'm happy about that. and then follows those two great declarations from the mouth of God himself about the certainty of his own exaltation, exaltation. This really frustrates people.

45:13 John Piper talked about this Friday night in our gathering for those who were here, how people can really get bent out of shape. It's one thing if God says, you exalt me, I exalt you. Trait. Another thing, if God says, you exalt me, I exalt me.

45:33 In Psalm 46, he says, I will be exalted. Not just I'm promising you're gonna exalt me while I exalt you, I will be exalted. I will see to it with what it means to be God that I'm exalted. This is utterly certain with all the strength, all the nearness all the power that it is to be god he will be exalted and the surety of his exaltation is precious to us beyond words because it gives us a place to stand when we're uncertain when we're unstable the utter certainty that god is god and that god will be exalted which is what it means to be god is granite under our feet it is the guarantee of our help. He is our fortress because he's our fortress. If he's not going to exalt himself, but be carried away by the crisis, what hope do you have? You need stability in the very godness of God, the one who will most certainly and righteously and lovingly exalt himself, which is good news for his people because in his self-exaltation is our salvation.

47:02 And so Psalm 46 ends with a powerful word. It's the word fortress, Luther's word. Verse seven, the refrain, verse 11. This is the final word on which the Psalm ends. It's even stronger than refuge. Refuge is great. Helm's deep is great. refuge is Helm's Deep. Fortress is heaven.

47:28 Fortress is a high refuge, a high height. It's an impenetrable fortress. Inaccessible height, a bulwark never failing. No chance they're getting through these walls. The refrain comforts us in verse seven, but it comes with added force in verse 11 because now God has spoken. The Psalm has climax in verse 10. Now we come back to the refrain on the heels of God's promise. As surely as he is God, he will be exalted. His people will be utterly safe in him. And as his people, we have in this God, in his self-exaltation, an impenetrable fortress. That's the fortress. I'm God, I do what God does. You're safe in me. His self-exaltation is love to his people.

48:23 One last word about the stillness. This is where we close. Psalm 46 is not the last time that God says, be still, is it? God himself in human flesh slept in the middle of the raging seas. His disciples panicked.

48:53 Seemed to be a life or death crisis for them. And when they woke him, Jesus was not frantic. He was sleeping in the storm. They woke him and what does he do? He utters his voice and the storm melts. He says, peace, be still. He didn't have to yell it. He just said it loud enough so that the disciples could hear it. Peace, be still. And so the calm in his own soul came out his mouth in the invisible word and calmed the raging seas. Mark 4, 39, the wind ceased and there was a great calm.

49:49 In Jesus Christ, we have and we know and we enjoy the God of Psalm 46. The lovingly self-exalting God of this Psalm is the son-exalting father of Jesus. and in him, only in him, comes together saving strength and presence and self-exaltation for the one that we turn to in our crisis and the one who would speak into our souls with his own calm, peace, be still.

50:30 Even as that storm rages in our soul and around us, he has a dawn appointed. Let's pray. So Father in heaven, I want to be more like Psalm 46. I wanna be shaped by this. We all know it's one thing to read it and hear it and preach it and sing it. And it's another thing to live it. Father, we wanna live it. We wanna know this calm. We wanna know this peace. We wanna know this absence of fear in our circumstances and trust in you who are our refuge. So Father, draw near to us, impress upon us afresh, your power, your nearness and attentiveness, and the love and beauty and stability of yourself, exaltation that gives us bedrock on which to stand.

51:27 When all around seems to be swaying. In Jesus name we pray, amen.