Psalm 46 is about confidence in God even when the world seems to be falling apart. The earth may give way. Nations may crumble. Political turmoil may rage. But the Lord is still good, and more to the point, he is still in control.
The final stanza of this psalm reads:
Come, behold the works of the LORD,
how he has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the chariots with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress. (Ps 46:8-11)
Notice the contrast in this psalm. In verse 6, the nations rage. They are in turmoil, trembling and restless. But God tells his people, “Don’t be like them. Stop. Just stop. Stop striving. Be still, and know that I am God.”
Solomon, in Ecclesiastes, urges us to “remember your Creator” (Ecc 12:1). Likewise, the sons of Korah in Psalm 46 remind us to remember our sovereign Lord, who reigns regardless of how chaotic the world may seem.
Verse 10 often comes to mind when life feels frantic. When stress builds, I hear the Lord saying, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps 46:10). However, I want to consider this verse from a different angle. What if life isn’t chaotic? What if it’s just ordinary? Is Psalm 46:10 still relevant on a perfectly normal day? I believe it is.
The Problem: We Cannot Be Still
We have a rule at our house: no one gets up from the dinner table until everyone is finished. My kids consider this cruel and unusual punishment. About five seconds after swallowing their last bite, one of them will ask, “Can I get up now?”
“No,” we say, “not until everyone is done.”
Then comes the inevitable follow-up: “Well, what am I supposed to do?”
“Just sit there. Talk with us. Reflect on the meaning of life. I don’t know, but stay at the table until we’re all finished.”
“But it’s boring.”
“Embrace it,” I tell them. “You’ll thank me when you’re older.”
Maybe you’ll disagree, but I think we have a problem in the developed world. We cannot be still. We can’t tolerate boredom for more than a few seconds. The moment we have nothing to do—no task, no distraction—we instinctively reach for entertainment. And entertainment is always within reach.
This is why grocery store checkout lines are full of people staring at their phones. It’s why, when I pull up to a stoplight, I can glance over and see someone in the next car scrolling. The other day, as I waited in the school drop-off line, I noticed the kids in the van ahead of me watching TV. We have trained ourselves to avoid even a moment of stillness.
A Culture of Constant Distraction
When I think back to my childhood—you know, those formative years—I’m actually grateful I didn’t grow up with smartphones. I still remember when we got our first cordless phone. What a technological marvel that was! You mean I don’t have to stretch a 30-foot tangled cord down the hallway to have a private conversation? Incredible.
I didn’t get my first mobile phone until my senior year of high school. And by “mobile,” I mean it was attached to a briefcase in the car and had to be plugged into the cigarette lighter. To my knowledge, I never once used it because calls cost about $20 a minute. My dad made it clear: emergencies only.
It was probably ten years after high school before I got my first smartphone. And I’m thankful for that because I suspect it’s part of the reason I’ve never struggled with smartphone addiction. When I read articles about how much time people spend on their phones each day or how pervasive smartphone addiction has become, part of me thinks, Just delete the apps and put the phone down. What’s the problem? But I didn’t grow up with these devices. When I was bored as a kid, I didn’t have many options. In Georgia, I explored the woods behind our house, hoping to avoid poisonous snakes. In Indiana, I explored the cornfields, wishing I could find anything as exciting as a snake.
Then again, I had a different problem. I didn’t have an entertainment source in my pocket, but I did have the TV. And though my parents mostly watched shows I wasn’t interested in, I remember the TV being on plenty. Most evenings, it ran for hours. I even watched cartoons in the mornings before school. If given a choice—assuming I could find something decent on one of our five channels—I probably would have chosen TV over playing outside more often than not.
Today, we’ve multiplied the problem. We can watch nearly anything on demand at any time. And we don’t just watch TV. We scroll our phones while watching TV. Maybe you’ve been to a holiday gathering where someone turns on the football game. Grandpa’s hard of hearing, so the volume is cranked up. Meanwhile, everyone in the room is staring at their phones. Even at restaurants, TVs are mounted on every wall, the music is loud enough to drown out conversation, and most people are glued to their screens.
It seems we have an aversion to what the Bible sometimes calls “quietness” or what we might call stillness. And going back to Psalm 46, this isn’t just about sitting still. Most people are pretty good at that. That’s what TV was made for—sitting still while being entertained. But biblical stillness is something else entirely.
In fact, Scripture warns against a certain kind of stillness—idleness. Proverbs, for example, has plenty to say about it:
Go to the ant, O sluggard;
consider her ways, and be wise.
Without having any chief,
officer, or ruler,
she prepares her bread in summer
and gathers her food in harvest.
How long will you lie there, O sluggard?
When will you arise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want like an armed man. (Pr 6:6-11)
Proverbs 19:15 warns, “Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger.”
Proverbs 20:4 says, “The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing.”
The New Testament offers similar warnings.
What It Means to Be Still
Psalm 46 isn’t necessarily telling us to be physically still, though that can be beneficial at times. The essence of Psalm 46:10 is that we need to still our minds and hearts. We need to step away from the constant noise and distractions so that we are in a better position to “know that I am God” (Ps 46:10).
What does the Lord mean by that? The word know in this verse implies more than mere awareness. It speaks of intimacy. The same Hebrew word appears in Genesis 4:1: “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain.” There, it refers to physical intimacy.
In other places, the same word describes a deep, experiential understanding. After Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, we’re told, “The eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Ge 3:7). Of course, they already knew they weren’t wearing clothing. But now, that knowledge carried weight. Their understanding of nakedness changed in a profound and shame-filled way.
Later in Genesis 3, God says, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil” (Ge 3:22). Adam and Eve likely had some abstract knowledge of good and evil before this. But their sin made them know it personally.
So when the Lord says, “Know that I am God,” he isn’t calling for mere intellectual acknowledgment (Ps 46:10). He is calling for attention. Look at me. Consider me. Study me. Listen to me. Become intimately familiar with who I am. Don’t settle for abstract notions about me. I want you to truly know me. I want a real, loving relationship with you. I want to deepen your understanding of me.
How is this accomplished? The Lord gives only two words: “Be still” (Ps 46:10).
The Christian Standard Bible captures the sense of this phrase well: “Stop fighting, and know that I am God” (Ps 46:10). The nations rage. They won’t stop striving. But God steps into this chaos and says, “Enough. Stop. Look at me.”
For broader application, I love how most translations render it: “Be still” (Ps 46:10).
A similar word appears throughout Scripture—quietness. Ecclesiastes 4:6 says, “Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.” Some translations use tranquility or rest, but I like quietness.
Isaiah uses the same word: “In returning [that is, to the Lord] and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isa 30:15). Notice the connection between repentance, faith, rest, and quietness. What’s the link? A person who is constantly busy and always distracted is neither in the right frame of mind nor the right position of heart to seek the Lord. Without quietness, too many things stand between us and him.
Think about a family at a restaurant or a holiday gathering where everyone is together but not really together—each person absorbed in their phone. They are physically present, sitting at the same table or in the same room, but mentally, they are worlds apart. They’re not talking. They’re not even looking at one another.
Is that an environment that fosters healthy, growing relationships? Hardly.
Our relationship with the Lord is no different.
The Cost of Constant Distraction
I was listening to an interview with Elon Musk a while back. As you know, he’s the wealthiest man on the planet and brilliant in many ways. In this particular interview, he defended people—adults included—who spend a lot of time playing video games. He argued that video games are not just mindless entertainment. In fact, he pointed out that surgeons who play video games have statistically higher success rates in the operating room. The reason? Video games improve hand-eye coordination and train people to make split-second decisions.
For a moment, I thought, Huh. That makes sense.
Then, the interview shifted to a discussion about God and religion, and it became clear that, for all his brilliance, Musk has never seriously sought after God. He has never genuinely tried to understand the Christian worldview. He has never studied the Bible or attempted to know God in any meaningful way. And that’s likely true for many successful doctors and surgeons as well.
Maybe video games have positive effects when it comes to worldly success, but I’m left asking, what effect do they have on our spiritual lives? That wasn’t part of Musk’s evaluation.
For the record, I’m not saying that playing video games makes it impossible to know the Lord. I played my fair share of Pac-Man and Mario Bros. growing up, but I have the same concerns about video games as TV and smartphones. For the most part, they are shallow, passive, and easy forms of entertainment that erode our ability to concentrate, think deeply, and be productive in any creative or intellectual work.
Recently, I read a study on our decreasing attention spans. Scientists have various ways of measuring this—behavioral tasks, eye-tracking, and so on. Back in the year 2000, before smartphones, the average attention span was twelve seconds. That already seems short, but today, it has dropped to eight seconds. That’s a 33% decrease. Supposedly, goldfish now have a longer attention span than human beings.
The problem perpetuates itself in a vicious cycle. Constant distractions and entertainment keep us from entering a state of quietness or stillness. In turn, our attention spans shrink, making us even more uncomfortable with a lack of distractions. So, at the first sign of boredom, we instinctively reach for something to entertain us. And on and on it goes.
Meanwhile, our relationships suffer.
Maybe it’s just me, but have you noticed people becoming less patient and more irritable, particularly in public spaces—on the road, in stores? Maybe I’m just more aware of it, but it seems our culture has changed. People don’t seem to respect one another the way they used to.
Not long ago, two people were shot and killed in Elkhart by an irate customer. Why? Some have suggested he was upset because the cashier was too young to ring up the alcohol he was trying to purchase.
How about customer service? Has it improved over the last twenty years? Sometimes, I leave a store feeling like I’ve inconvenienced the clerk by giving them my business. I get a big eye roll when I walk up to the counter. Forget hearing, “Hello. How are you today?” No, I get an exasperated sigh as the cashier begrudgingly puts down their phone.
I’m sure there are many underlying causes for this, but my gut tells me that our overreliance on technology plays a significant role. Smartphones, in particular, have conditioned us for instant gratification. If we’re bored for even a few seconds, we can reach for our phones. For many people, real-life interactions have become secondary to virtual ones. Suddenly, face-to-face conversations feel like interruptions.
As a result, we are losing the ability to “be still,” as God himself implored us to do (Ps 46:10), and it’s not just our relationship with God that suffers. Our relationships with each other are eroding as well. If our lack of stillness is hurting the way we interact with people we can see with our own eyes, how much more is it hurting our relationship with the Lord, whom we cannot see?
In his book Technopoly, Neil Postman wrote, “Technology always has unforeseen consequences, and it is not always clear, at the beginning, who or what will win, and who or what will lose.”
With each passing year, we’re getting a clearer picture of what we’re losing.
At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, we stand to lose our souls.
In Mark 8:36, Jesus asked, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”
We now have the whole world within reach. If we want to see any place on the planet, we’re only a Google search away. If we want to learn about anything, information is available in seconds. This might feel like an incredible blessing—and in some ways, it is—but it also comes with unintended consequences.
The Empty Promises of Digital Distraction
This week, I was reading Ask Pastor John by Tony Reinke and John Piper and came across a section titled “Far Too Easily Bored”:
The mobile screen in our pocket offers us “an endless stream of fascinating, weird, strange, wonderful, shocking, spellbinding, cute pictures and quotes and videos and stories and links—and many of us have gotten to the point where we are almost addicted to the need for something striking and bizarre and extraordinary and amazing.
The pattern was true before smartphones. Generations have turned to illuminated displays to find glory because the fallen human heart grows quickly bored with God’s revealed glories in creation. “We go to the Alps, see them for the first time, and are stunned speechless. We rent a little chalet at the foot of the mountains, and for three mornings we get up amazed. And by the fourth morning, we are watching television.” This is the result of the fall.
If I may paraphrase, we are missing out on the glories of God because we are consumed with lesser versions of that glory or, in many cases, outright secular distractions.
Let me give you some examples.
Looking at photos or videos of the Alps on the Internet will never compare to seeing them in person or even stepping outside and enjoying God’s creation in your own backyard. But it’s easier to look at a screen than to go outside.
I know people who like and share Bible quotes on Facebook all day long but never actually read or study the Bible for themselves. Again, it’s easier. It’s more stimulating to get a quick “Bible fix” as you scroll past funny memes.
Not long ago, I ran into an old friend who recommended The Chosen, a TV series about the life of Christ. He told me he’s watched every episode. But a moment later, he admitted that he struggles to pray. He told me that on a good day, he might pray for five minutes. His issue isn’t time. It’s focus. His mind has been trained to expect passive, engaging entertainment, and prayer doesn’t provide the same stimulation.
Someone else once told me he watches nearly every new movie because, in his words, “Every movie is good now, thanks to CGI.” I think what he meant is that modern special effects make every movie visually stunning. Movies are captivating, in part, because they create scenes the real world can’t replicate. I’d say most of our daily entertainment is appealing for the same reason. Whether it’s movies, TV, or the Internet, the content we consume is designed to be more visually impressive, more dramatic, and often funnier than real life.
How can real life possibly compete, especially when digital entertainment is so readily available and easy to consume?
By the way, I haven’t even addressed the content of our entertainment. That’s an important discussion, but before we go there, we need to start at the base level. Why do we feel the need to be constantly entertained in the first place? Why do we instinctively reach for our phones first thing in the morning, in the checkout line, at a stoplight, or even in the bathroom? Why do we make a beeline for the TV the moment we get home?
I’m sure you can think of your own examples. But the real question is: Why? Why are we obsessed with entertainment? Why do we find it so hard to “be still” (Ps 46:10)?
The Root of Our Restlessness
I believe the answer is relatively simple: discontentment.
A few years ago, I made a conscious decision to delete most of the apps from my phone and resist the urge to pull it out every spare moment. I wanted to embrace the so-called boredom of life. If I was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, instead of mindlessly scrolling, I could pray, strike up a conversation, or just sit quietly with my thoughts.
Looking back, I wrote this about the experience:
The impulse to unlock my phone and start tapping mindlessly—without any real reason—never completely left me. Whenever I felt its pull, I thought of the apostle Paul. I imagined him, afflicted in every way but not crushed, writing his most thankful and joyous epistle from a Roman prison (2Co 4:8). He told the Philippians:
I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content. (Php 4:11-12)
Paul didn’t own a smartphone or share our trivial first-world struggles, but his words still apply. They forced me to ask myself: Do I know the secret of contentment? If I needed constant stimulation—if I couldn’t sit still for even a moment without entertainment—was I truly content?
My conclusion hasn’t changed. The reason we’re so quick to reach for our phones, tablets, or TV remotes is because of the restlessness in our hearts.
Why are we restless? Why are we discontent?
This problem goes all the way back to the fall of Adam. When he sinned against God, the consequence was far worse than physical death. He was cut off from God’s presence. Genesis 3 ends with this haunting scene:
The LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden … He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way. (Ge 3:23-24)
From that moment on, humanity has been trying to fill a void that only God himself can satisfy.
The Lord describes this futile effort in Jeremiah 2:13: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
God says, I offer you water that never runs dry. I give you life-giving water, unlike anything you’ve ever known. But instead, you reject me and dig broken wells that can’t even hold water.
Where’s the sense in that?
It doesn’t make sense. But this is what we do. We settle for less. And when we settle for less, we remain unsettled. And because we remain unsettled, we seek more of what can never satisfy.
This is why people build idols. This is why we chase wealth, fame, and power. This is why we can’t go five seconds without checking social media or watching YouTube.
We are discontent. But instead of seeking God to fill the emptiness in our souls, we turn to everything else.
God’s Invitation to True Rest
As you read through Scripture, pay attention to the Lord’s invitations. More often than not, when he calls people to himself, his promise is peace, satisfaction, contentment, or rest. Here are just a few examples:
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. (Isa 26:3)
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Mt 11:28)
For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things. (Ps 107:9)
I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. (Jn 6:35)
Therefore do not be anxious, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” … Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Mt 6:31, 33)
We are restless because sin has left a void in our souls. Our separation from God has made us long for something more. The only way to fill this void and find true peace is through reconciliation with God in Christ. Even then, we continue to wrestle with our flesh, which pulls us away from God and back into a state of restlessness. Instead of returning to the fountain of living water, we dig more broken cisterns.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
When it comes to trivial entertainment, it’s like taking ibuprofen for a toothache. The painkiller may offer temporary relief, but it doesn’t fix the problem. In fact, it could make things worse by delaying the real solution.
Think about it.
Netflix seems to offer rest. You don’t have to do anything but kick back and watch. What does it actually deliver? Exhaustion. Who hasn’t stayed up way too late binge-watching something that wasn’t worth it?
Social media promises connection, but instead, it pulls us into a shallow, virtual world. We grow apart from real-life family and friends while feeling more isolated than ever. We scroll through carefully curated glimpses of other people’s lives, and instead of feeling connected, we feel discontent.
Constant stimulation promises fulfillment but leads to emptiness. The more we consume, the less capable we become of being still and communing with God.
The Triviality Trap
Tony Reinke and John Piper put it this way:
We trade our capacity for glory to consume trifling and trivial substitutes. So how do we escape the triviality trap? Five practical responses.
(1) Repent. Confess to God the sin that has led you here. “Cry out to God for help that he would wake you up from the slumbers of emptiness and meaninglessness and boredom in the endless quest to be titillated in body while the soul is languishing and starving for greatness.”
(2) Engage. “Set yourself on a conscious quest to obey God’s strategy for cultivating a spiritual mind that is fully alert to the glories of God, radiant in the world, and radiant in the word.” Take Paul’s charge in Colossians 3:1-3 as “your marching orders.” Set your mind on eternal glories. Focus on what is excellent—“on things that are worthy and that have the potential to deepen and strengthen and purify our souls” (Php 4:8).
(3) Find a local church “where the preaching is blood-earnest and serious, where God-besought joy, and not flippant silliness, marks the wonders of the word of God.”
(4) Surround yourself with eternally minded friends (1Co 15:55). “Superficiality is a very, very, very contagious disease. If you only hang out with superficial people, you will almost certainly become superficial. If you only hang out with superficial social media and TV programs, you will almost certainly be a superficial person.”
(5) Read the great Puritan authors, whose writings are “unlike anything you will find in the twentieth and twenty-first century, because they are so nonsuperficial, nonsilly, nontrivial, non-man-centered.”
That is all excellent advice.
I’m not suggesting we eliminate entertainment altogether. It can be a good and even beneficial thing if approached wisely. I’ll have more to say on that next time.
For now, we each need to ask ourselves:
How much time and attention do we give to entertainment?
Why do we give it that much time and attention?
What are the unintended consequences of giving it so much time and attention?
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