Selah

It was a Sunday at 6:45 a.m. in 2016, 2017, or 2018—it’s all a blur now. The day went by, and just like that it was 8:45 p.m. and I had eaten at most one meal. At that time, my husband was headed to his overnight shift at work, and I was headed home. We thought we were doing God’s work.

In that season of our life and ministry, we didn’t know how to live in silence, stopping, and stillness. It was simply not our normal way of living. Some people choose to meditate and be still, but our society is eager for rapid results and constant information. We see the inability to listen to God in the Bible too, so we don’t need to feel so bad about moving so fast and not stopping to listen to God, right?

In the Psalms (and a few other books of the Bible), we find a beautiful word that is an invitation from God: selah. Selah is the Hebrew word that likely means “to stop and listen.” In the context of Christian living, it’s an invitation not just to pause but also to listen to God during the pause. The world’s forms of meditating, reflecting, and thinking invite us to empty our minds and listen to our “inner self” or “inner truth.” By contrast, selah means pausing to meditate on, reflect on, and think about what God is saying. We may not hear God audibly, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t speaking. Some hear him through a feeling. Others hear him through visions. All of us, if we follow Christ, have access to his voice, which we can find in the pages of Scripture. And because we can listen to him, we should do it. I know that may sound obvious and funny, but it’s something many Christians aren’t doing. I say that because of seeing the fruit of what many Christians are saying, thinking, and doing in the world.

We are a collective Body, which means we are responsible to one another. By way of the apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 12, Christ says we are his Body. Where we currently are as a Body is dangerous. If we keep going, thinking we have the best practices and best approaches to “church,” then we’ll stay lost and keep hurting one another, and people will continue to walk away from the faith or not consider it at all.

We are speeding, and we need to selah instead.

I read a book the other day that said that, contrary to popular belief, Christianity isn’t dying. The author stated this as a fact by pointing to statistics. I’m a big fan of data and numbers and believe they communicate information to help us as a society make wise decisions, yet when it comes to measuring the faith of followers of Christ, authentic faith can’t be measured by polling data. Numbers don’t tell us who is following Jesus—one’s life does. If we were to look at the lives of the Christians we know and various public Christian leaders, we would at least wonder whether the Christian faith is expanding in a healthy way ac- cording to the Great Commission.

Matthew 28:19–20 says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” There are no numbers in this passage, no call to make leaders, and no focus on one specific way of doing church. Instead, Jesus tells us to tell people the good news and form healthy communities that observe his commands.

How do we do this while we wait for Jesus to come back?

One of the best ways is through selah. To stop and listen. To stop and evaluate. To pause and reflect. To take a break and consider what is working and what isn’t. To consider if what we are doing is biblical. To consider what is a priority and what isn’t. To consider what is honorable and what is not dignifying. To consider what it is to be the Body of Christ while we are breathing this borrowed breath here on earth.