The Healthy Pause You Need Right Now
I have been reading through the Psalms again, this time in The Passion Translation. The language is beautiful and inviting and it doesn’t take long before I read pause in His presence.
Lord, I have so many enemies, so many who are against me. Listen to how they whisper their slander against me, saying: “Look! He’s hopeless! Even God can’t save him from this!” pause in His presence."
Psalm 3:2 TPT
Selah
Pause in His presence is the Hebrew word selah.
Selah is a puzzling word to translate. Most scholars believe it is a musical term for pause or rest. It is used a total of 71 times in the Psalms as an instruction to the music leader to pause and ponder in God’s presence.
Dr. Brian Simmons
3 Reasons to Pause and Ponder Right Now
1. You need a rest from the tension
It feels like the world is at a state of tension right now. I didn’t say we were standing at attention (that would be good especially if our focus was in prayer and trusting God), but that we are in the middle of one of an intense moments in history with the Covid-19 pandemic, racial tension, distrust, political opinions, and social stress.
Selah, pausing in His presence, shifts our thoughts and emotions toward God.
We turn from tension to rest, quietness, and confidence in God.
2. You can retune the strings of your heart
When the musicians saw the word selah in their musical score, they would use this pause to retune their harps.
Strings so easily get out of tune, just like the strings of our heart. We must let selah, pausing in His presence, to teach us to pray and realign our hearts with God’s ways.
Dr. Brian Simmons
Have you ever tuned an instrument? It involves playing a note or plucking the string and then listening to see if it matches the tuning fork or “A” note played by the 1st chair oboist.
Proverbs 2:2 instructs us to tune our ears to wisdom and concentrate on understanding. That means we adjust to the frequency of God’s voice and Word.
You are eventually shaped by the loudest voice in your life and the one you listen to the most.
What voice are you tuning your ear to hear?
3. You can settle in God’s truth
I noticed in Psalm 9 that David adds another word to selah, Higayon Selah. The Hebrew word higayon means to consider the truth of the matter, meditation and musing.
David has been praising God in this psalm; for when you appear, I worship while all my enemies run in retreat. They stumble and perish before your presence. . . consider the truth of this and pause in His presence.
This is the truth:
- God appears, He shows up for you
- You begin to worship and your enemies (stress, lies, worry, the hard, the taxing, the frustrating, etc) flee
- Everything changes in His Presence
Rest. Tuned to God’s Voice. In His Truth
Go for it friends! Take a few selah moments right now.
