selah

the holy space suspended between the past and the promise.

Selah.
The pause.
The breath.
The holy space suspended between the past and the promise.

It’s the part we rush through, glance over.

In our rush to either get away from where we are or rush to where we think we’re going, we risk missing the Lord, who often lingers in quiet spaces.

Selah is the word you will often encounter through the Psalms. It’s at the end of the row and is often italicized. Easy to miss. In fact, it’s often not included in most scripture references because it’s considered an action word, telling the reader or performer (Psalm means song afterall) to pause before continuing.

What I find incredible it is that God speaks to us at all. Familiarity is the death of desire, and we risk being so familiar with the idea that the Almighty speaks to us that we miss the miracle entirely.

To understand God’s heart in stillness, we need only to look back to the garden. When Adam and Even ate the forbidden fruit, they made a cosmic error we’re still feeling the ripple effect from today. But instead of giving his created beings an eternal silent treatment, God chose still to walk in the garden, to clothe Adam and Eve and begin the process, through His word, to show us the path to reconciliation.

He walked. He came to them, it says in Genesis 3:8, “when the cool evening breezes were blowing.” I would have expected him to come in a pillar of fire, in a booming voice, terrible and awesome to condemn them both for the grievous sin they had committed.

But God in his power and wisdom and foreknowledge, came to them gently. He came to them as a friend. The consequences of their action still had to be doled out, but rather than abandoning them to guilt and shame, he clothed them with hope that one day all would be set right through His son, Jesus.

We see in the pages of scripture that God often prefers to speak to his people through stillness, with gentleness. He spoke to Elijah not through the whirlwind but in the still, small voice that followed. The Psalmist declares that the Lord leads him beside still waters. The Lord himself declares to the Israelites that He will fight their enemies and that they need only to be still.

Over and over, we see that God’s power is not diminished by gentleness — it’s displayed through it.

It’s easy to mistake stillness for silence or inaction. And yet it is neither.

Stillness is the exhale, lowering our shoulders, and softening our hearts.

Stillness is the act of pausing, of creating space.

We must practice stillness both with our physical bodies and in our minds, and by doing so, we make room in our hearts to hear from God. How can we invite him to speak with us if we don’t first make room?

Don’t skip it or you might miss out on all that God has waiting for you.

Selah.
The pause.
Make room.
Create space.