Rev. Adelyn Mgonela reflects: Practicing the ‘Selah’

These days busyness has taken over our lives. We wake up and we seem to just go, go, go. Most of the times when we are asked how are you doing? The answer is fine or good but busy and tired. And indeed, we are busy, to the point of exhaustion.

We need to ask the question: Is being busy really creating opportunities for how God intended us to live?

The Psalms show us a model for a life that’s lived in faith. That model includes a particular word that’s ofteninserted at the end of a verse. The word SELAH! It occurs 78 times throughout the Psalms. And as a child one is told never to say the word when you read the Psalms.

Selah is designed to help us experience the power of God speaking through the Psalms. Selah demands of us to pause and calmly think. To pause reflect and meditate. It means to get a clearer, deeper understand- ing, to allow revelation to develop within, to see clearer, to seal with understanding.

Selah is an uncommon word in Hebrew, and translators find it difficult to translate but one thing is certain: it is a purposeful pause. These purposeful pauses are meant to cause reflection and absorption.

For example Psalm 67:1 says God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us; Selah. The purposeful pause ensures that we are not missing the important point.

So in our rapid pace of life, Selah causes us to makesure that we’re not missing the important things. Sowhen we are experiencing a life of busyness where we seem to be missing the important things, a life where we are overwhelmed, overstressed and overworked Godsteps in and says to us, “Selah.” In other words: Pause!Reflect! Meditate!

BUT Selah is more than just a word in some of the Psalms. Selah is a practice for it shows us how we should live -with purposeful pauses to absorb the reality ofwhoGodisandwhoweareinGod.AlifeofSelahreminds us of God’s call upon our lives. First the call to worship God as we owe all to him and also that we are loved by God who calls us into service for Him. Selah calls us not to live overstressed, overworked, over- whelmed lives, but rather calls us to freedom from the tyranny of being busy.

This means we must live life by God’s Selah design.That necessitates purposeful pauses in our schedule, intentional intermissions from being busy. God has designed life in that way because if we keep going, if we never stop, if we always seek to do more because we want to be well regarded, we want our children to be well rounded, we want to produce, we want toimpress, we want to gain status, we want….we want….We want. Then we would be no good to ourselves or any one else.

When we really examine it closely what we want is our ego and pride. We want our lives to be about us. It is personal pride. Our pride says we can do, be, accom- plish, and provide it all.

Busyness causes us to focus on self and as a result we revel in the glory. This is the opposite of a life marked by Selah. A life of Selah gives the glory to God because the focus is on serving God through our lives so that He gets the glory. So you ask how can I escape being busy? Well do you really think that God desires that we be overwhelmed? Of course not. God does not intend for us to have a life that is stressed out, overworked, and overwhelmed.

Selah then is the antidote to the busy lifestyle; a way for us to resist the prideful temptation to always do more and be more. Selah is a quiet call to experience that God is of clarity, not overwhelm; God is of rest, not rush; God is of peace, not anxiety. Selah is release from being busy. Selah is freedom.

But we have expectations. We have obligations. How can I put those aside for a Selah moment?

One scholar suggests four practical ways.

First: Create a schedule that revolves around Selah practice: purposeful pauses for fun and rest. This means that these intentionally scheduled intermissions are the first priority of your weekly schedule, around which everything else revolves. This is time to be spent doing things that are good for your soul, that feel restful and releasing of the pressures and burdens of life. That means we are to make scheduling time for walking, reading, going out with friends, and especially time to just casually be a family, the first priority of our week.

Some have suggested creating at least 16 hours of purposeful rest in your schedule beyond sleep time; theequivalent of one full day of waking hours. It’s easiestto set aside a full day, like Saturday, for Selah, but if a full day is impossible in your schedule, make 16 hours the goal and begin by setting aside as many hours as you can for fun, rest, and release, in your schedule. So first, create a schedule whose first priority is rest and fun.

Second: Make space for worship both corporately and individually with Selah. As a part of those sixteen hours, set aside time for one on one encounters with God; like a devotional or quiet time. This is a chance to read our bibles, pray, meditate, read a devotional book, anything that connects our souls to God in a deep and meaningful way. Also make church attendance a priority as you schedule those sixteen hours, such that we experience God through the power of corporate worship. So within those sixteen hours set aside for rest and fun, schedule times for corporate and individual worship of God.

Today’s world is moving at a fast pace; everybodywants your time. Your family, spouse, children, church. But . . . what about time for the One who has given you time for all things? How much quality time do we really give the Almighty God we speak about?

Make yourself available to God’s Love; Meditate onGod and his Goodness; Fellowship and commune with him; quietly listen to him; become more intimate with God as the lover of your soul.

Ephesians 1: 17-18 says: 17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: 18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.

When we take Selah moments we receive: Wisdom, revelation and understanding from the throne of God; we receive Rest. We Refocus; our strength is renewed; and we are able to Re produce. In other words we get new ideas.

Third: Trust God with our time. Time is just likemoney: it’s a limited resource and having more of it comes only from wise management and trust infollowing God’s call. We must trust that God willprovide enough time to accomplish the things God has called us to do. God is in the midst of our goals and will bring success to them if God shares in those goals. And if one is not successful in the goals one sets then a question must be asked: Is God really in this particular goal that has been set? Some hard decisions might have to be taken.

Fourth: Be honest with yourself. We are not capable of doing everything; no one is. We over commit our- selves because we believe we are needed, we believe we are essential. Selah reminds us that we are not God. So we must abandon our pride that causes us to believe we are essential to the world. When we get to this place, we find that Selah relieves the pressure and burdens of feeling that we must be all things to all people; that we must commit to everything asked of us.

A life of Selah is a life of freedom. Freedom from being tied down to schedules and feelings of being needed; free- dom from having to run around from one thing to another; freedom from being exhausted from the busyness of life; freedom from the demands to do more, be more, produce more, accomplish more; freedom to simply be loved by God because we have the space, the freedom, to see and experience the many blessings God has given us.

So overall be honest about what you are capable of;Know that you’re not essential except to your family. Alife that is lived by Selah, is to take a moment, pause and focus on God. Find rest. Find the peace that your soul is desperately searching for. No matter how busy we may be practicing a life of Selah, a life marked by purposeful pauses, mediation and reflection connects us to God in a deep and meaningful way. For in Selah, inGod’s rest our anxieties flee and we are set free.

Selah.

October 2018, EWI Province of the Moravian Church