HROCK Church: Be Still … And Know

 

“Are you busy?” It’s a simple question we frequently ask each other multiple times every day. It can be the way we start a phone conversation, an impromptu meeting in the hallway at work, even an exchange with a family member at home. Usually the reply is something like, “No, what’s up?” Actually, I think if we were honest we would reply, “Yes, I’m busy, so make it short.”

For too many of us, multitasking has become a way of life. We eat meals while driving and talking on the phone. Standing in line, we are checking our e-mail, texting responses, or doing online banking. We are instantly accessible, virtually anywhere in the world and some of us even sleep with our smart phones. There are well over a million mobile applications available today. They allow us to do everything from establishing goals for our day, to setting up a personal fitness program, checking current data on any sport we follow, or having an alarm remind us it’s our wedding anniversary.

Often we must check with our phone before we can commit to anything or anyone. The technology supposed to provide us with more convenience and access to information, in many ways has become a ball and chain that tethers us to our incessant busyness.

I was reminded of this recently when we had guest speaker Bob Hartley give HRock Church a prophetic word for our upcoming 20th anniversary in April. He said, “Busyness devoid of life must cease. We must learn to stay at the table and commune longer with Father God in order to go to the next level of intimacy with Him. We don’t get birthed into His love to get more busy.”

He went on to say that we are entering a new season in which Father God wants to expand our wisdom of Him by giving us a whole new level of insight into His ways and purposes. But we must be still and wait upon Him in order to get above the clouds of our activity long enough to understand what He is doing. If we don’t get out of our busy reactive mode long enough to understand that He has another way to accomplish His plans, we may well construct something prematurely that we will only have to tear down later.

It’s time to be still… and know our identity, whom we are in Christ, and what gifts He has given us to fulfill the destiny He calls us to. Father God wants to bless us in every way, and He wants us to take His blessing into the places where we spend our life and bless others by giving them a future and a hope. He tells us in 1 Peter 4:10, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”

In Psalm 67, Father God instructs us to pray, “Be gracious to us and bless us. Make Your face shine upon us that Your way may be known upon earth, Your saving power among all the nations.” God’s way to accomplish this is not by increasing our busyness, but by taking us to a new level in the knowledge of Him and His ways. We can only do this if we will “Be still… and know.”

Please join us this Sunday at 9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. or 2:00 p.m. Dr. Okawa, pastor of the largest charismatic church in Japan, will be our guest speaker at the 9 and 11 a.m. services. Our own Pastor Linda Wallace and my daughter, Grace Ahn Baik will be sharing at the 2 p.m. service.

Pastor Che

HROCK Church at the Ambassador Auditorium, 131 S. St.John Avenue, Pasadena, (626) 794-1199 or visit HRockChurch.com