Devotions for a Busy Business Person, No. 307 – Be Still

There are moments in business when everything in you urges you to act. You want to fix what is broken, respond quickly, push harder, and take control of the situation before it slips any further. Action feels responsible, even necessary.

And yet, into that urgency comes a most counterintuitive instruction:

“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” — Exodus 14:14

Israel heard these words while standing at the edge of the Red Sea, with the Egyptian army closing in behind them and no visible path forward ahead. It was not a moment that invited calm reflection or careful planning. It was a moment of real pressure, where decisive action seemed the only reasonable response.

But God’s instruction was not to act. It was to be still.

This kind of stillness is not passivity, nor is it avoidance. God did not ask them to run away. It is a deliberate and disciplined trust that allows God to act in ways that we cannot. In the life of a business or an organization, there will be Red Sea moments—times when your experience, your network, and your effort are not enough, and when the way forward is unclear despite your best thinking.

In such moments, stillness becomes an act of faith.

Norma recently pointed me to another scene of pressure and uncertainty in the Gospel of Matthew, where the disciples find themselves in a storm and Jesus comes to them walking on the water. Peter, in a remarkable act of trust, steps out of the boat and begins to walk toward Him. For a brief moment, he participates in the impossible. Yet as his attention shifts and he notices the wind and the waves, his confidence falters.

“Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. ‘You of little faith,’ he said, ‘why did you doubt?’” – Matthew 14:31

The word translated as doubt carries the sense of being drawn in two directions. Peter was not unbelieving; he was divided. He was at once trusting Jesus and fearing the storm, moving forward yet hesitating at the same time.

This is often our experience as well. We sense God’s leading, yet we hedge our steps. We begin in trust, but we continue with a measure of self-reliance, glancing sideways at circumstances and outcomes. In doing so, we find ourselves internally divided, and that division weakens our footing.

An insight from In Touch Ministries captures this dynamic well:

“Jesus often does not come in the way that we expect. Our ideas of how He works can actually make us wonder where He might be and blind us to how near He actually is.”

In business, this can be particularly challenging. We tend to expect God’s presence to be evident in clear progress, strong results, and resolved problems. Yet He often comes in quieter and less obvious ways—in restraint rather than expansion, in delay rather than acceleration, in conversations we did not plan or doors that close unexpectedly.

If we remain fixed on our own expectations, we may miss His presence altogether, even as He is drawing near.

And yet, beneath both the Red Sea and the storm, there is a deeper assurance:

“Now therefore, if you will in fact obey My voice and keep My covenant… then you shall be My own special possession and treasure…” — Exodus 19:5

This promise reminds us that the foundation of our work is not ultimately our success or our ability to navigate difficulty. It is our belonging. We are His, and He is not absent from the moments that unsettle us most.

To be still, then, is not to withdraw from responsibility, but to remain anchored in that relationship. It is to trust that the God who calls us also fights for us, even when His ways do not align with our expectations.

Prayer

Lord,

In the midst of the demands and pressures of my work, teach me the discipline of stillness.

When I feel compelled to act out of fear or urgency, grant me the wisdom to pause and the courage to trust You. When I find myself divided, pulled between faith and control, help me to fix my attention fully on You.

I place both the outcomes and the waiting in Your hands.

Amen.