Articles
Stop Striving, Know I Am God
A lot of people struggle with striving for something. Striving for something can be a sinful action but in most cases it’s not. I would define striving after something sinful by using the word lust. The word striving implies a great amount of effort and difficulty in accom-plishing something. Humans can strive about many things. We can strive to obtain a de-gree, a job, a relationship, an award and more. We can strive to know what is going to happen in the future, as it pertains to an event that we are anxious about. We want to know what the outcome will be, and we dwell on it richly or try so hard to control what is happening. That’s exactly what striving is. Go-ing after something with a huge amount of effort and it’s also a difficult thing to reach or get done, and in some cases it’s impossible as human to control the situation or outcome.
As an example of striving for some-thing that man couldn’t control, In Exodus 32, the people were striving to see Moses come down from the mount Sinai, the mountain that Moses received the ten commandments from God. Exodus 32:1 says that when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down, they gathered around Aaron and told him to make a god for them since they don’t know what happened to Moses. Their lack of patience on Moses and more importantly, their lack of respect and patience towards God, led them into making a poor decision. They got Aaron to make the golden calf and a result of their action, Moses came down from Mount Sinai after God told him what was happen-ing, and Moses made the sons of Israel drink the golden calf after it had been grounded to powder and scattered over water. Moses in-structed those for the Lord, being the sons of Levi to take their sword and go back and forth from gate to gate in the camp killing every man in their path (FACT CHECK), resulting in 3,000 men being killed. At the end of Deuteronomy 32, God struck the people with a plague because of their actions. All of this would’ve been avoided if the peo-ple waited on the Lord and the return of Moses from Mount Sinai. There striving for Moses to return got the best of them. To their credit, they were patient for 40 days and 40 nights, but eventually their striving overcame them, and they committed this sin.
Striving doesn’t do us any good unless it’s striving for God and what His word tells us to do. We can see that in the example of the Israelites in Exodus 32. Psalm 46:10 reads “Stop striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be ex-alted on the earth.” There is no need to strive after things that again aren’t inherently sinful. We can take comfort in knowing God is ex-alted among the nations and on the earth. He is greater and it’s go-ing to be good because God is good. Going back to the beginning of Psalm 46, we see verse 1 says “God is our refuge and strength, a very ready help in trouble.” He is the One we want to go to when there is difficulty, when there is fear in front of us, when we have strife about a situation that we have no control over or very little control over. But because God is our refuge and strength and because God is a very ready help in trouble, we won’t fear even though the things in V2-3 happen. All though these amazing earth changing events hap-pen, we don’t fear because God is our refuge and help. Verses 2-3 are all situations that man has no control over or if you are more on the stubborn side, you could make a case they have very little control over. Yet there is no need for fear or strife, which comes into play in
v10 as we’ve already mentioned. Jumping down to verse 6 of this Psalm, we see that the nations made an uproar and kingdoms tottered. But God. But God raised His voice and the earth quaked. If we were someone who was a witness of nations making an uproar and kingdoms tottering or falling, that would likely cause some of us strife and worry. Yet again though, the answer is but God. He is greater and just by His voice the earth quaked. The Lord of Armies is with us and is our strong-hold as verse 7 and 11 say, and we have no need to fear because of Him.
Verses 8-9 list of amazing things our God can do. He is so loving of our His people. He is so great and all powerful, which all leads us to verse 10. His love for His people and His greatness and power means we don’t have to strive, and we shouldn’t. What we should do is know that He is God and that regardless of what happens anywhere on this earth, He will be exalted among the nations. Regardless of anything that is happening in my life or your life, God is greater than it will be exalted on the earth. We have no need to strive because God is going to take care of His people. If we are tempted to strive and become anxious over something, remember to go to God, especially in prayer. Remember the words of 1st Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” What you are facing, what is causing you strife or difficulty is something that others of mankind have faced and something that you are able to handle WITH God. There is no need to strive because our God is our refuge, He is our stronghold, our fortress. He is our help, a very ready help in trouble. He will be exalted always and is greater than what you and me may face. As we continue in our walk in Christ, let us keep Psalm 46:10 on our minds, and remember that we don’t need to strive about what we don’t have or be anxious about what will happen, be-cause the same God who created the sky is the same God with you in trials.
