Streams in the Desert November 24 Daily Devotional

Be still, and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10).
Is there any note of music in all the chorus as mighty as the
emphatic pause? Is there any word in all the Psalter more eloquent than that one word, Selah (Pause)? Is there anything more thrilling and awful than the hush that comes before the bursting of the
tempest and the strange quiet that seems to fall upon all nature before some preternatural phenomenon or convulsion? Is there anything that can touch our hearts as the power of stillness?
There is for the heart that will cease from itself, "the peace of
God that passeth all understanding," a "quietness and confidence" which is the source of all strength, a sweet peace " 1 which
nothing can offend," a deep rest which the world can neither give
nor take away. There is in the deepest center of the soul a chamber of peace where God dwells, and where, if we will only enter in and hush every other sound, we can hear His still, small voice.
There is in the swiftest wheel that revolves upon its axis a place in the very center, where there is no movement at all; and so in
the busiest life there may be a place where we dwell alone with
God, In eternal stillness. There is only one way to know God. "Be
still, and know." "God is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him." --Selected.
"All-loving Father, sometimes we have walked under starless skies
that dripped darkness like drenching rain. We despaired of
starshine or moonlight or sunrise. The sullen blackness gloomed above us as if it would last forever. And out of the dark there
spoke no soothing voice to mend our broken hearts. We would gladly
have welcomed some wild thunder peal to break the torturing stillness of that over-brooding night.
"But Thy winsome whisper of eternal love spoke more sweetly to our bruised and bleeding souls than any winds that breathe across
Aeolian harps. It was Thy 'still small voice' that spoke to us. We
were listening and we heard. We looked and saw Thy face radiant with the fight of love. And when we heard Thy voice and saw Thy face, new fife came back to us as fife comes back to withered
blooms that drink the summer rain."