Time for a Holy Pause

For K, who selahs with me.

When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars.

SELAH

Psalm 75:3

On a high mountain deep in the Asian jungle, there is a refuge. At the end of a long red road, it sits like a grandmother, beckoning the bruised to climb onto her lap and be mended, comforted. Sung over with songs of love and healing.

The threshold of this sacred shelter is dotted with tiny shoes, scattered like multi-colored flower petals.

A safe place for children, the rescued are hidden here. They gather around a hearty table and eat their fill. They learn about the One who died to rescue them. They discover who He is and who they really are. Loved. Valued. Honored. Created for hope and a future. As the monsoon rains fall like a brocade curtain from the skies, the children dance on the massive verandas, sheltered. I’ve witnessed this miracle and I bear witness to you.

Not too far away is another building where the children never go. The room spreads long and wide. Here courageous adults sit hyper-focused day and night before blinking computer screens, brows knitted, keys clicking, as they comb the dark web for evil deeds done in secret. Like the Savior they follow, their hearts are set on rescue and it is their task to identify when and where a child can be saved.

Such work in the dark does violence to one’s soul.

As I peered across the sacred space, I asked, “How do they care for their souls?”

We require Selah, came the reply.

Selah is found 71 times in the Psalms and 3 times in Habbakuk. Scholars debate exactly what selah means, so it has remained untranslated in our Bibles. But many propose that it is a musical term indicating a pause. That pause may be filled with silence, or some have suggested it was the meaningful pause before a musical crescendo to emphasize a point of particular, powerful praise.

A holy pause. 

When the earth totters with unmentionable evil, and all its inhabitants with it, it is the Lord who keeps steady its pillars.

Selah.

Breathe that truth in deep.

Then breathe out the violence done to your soul by the agony, the anxiety, the anguish of the tottering earth and its inhabitants.

Selah steadies our souls.

What are you hyper-focused on today, brows knitted, mind combing every possible strategy for rescue or resolve? Has the tottering world and its inhabitants done violence to your soul?

Perhaps it is time for a holy pause, to remind ourselves who steadies the pillars of the earth. #selah Share on X

Perhaps we all should require selah of our souls.

Lord, I pause today and remind my soul that you are my stability and the stability of the whole earth. Amen.

@audreycfrank

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash