He Reigns

When you need to remember — that You're still my Shepherd.

There is a kind of noise that is layered. Different stresses lifting their voices at the same time. Family pressure underneath work pressure underneath cultural pressure underneath your own internal weather. You can feel each one separately, and when they all start up together, it feels like waves pounding from every direction. You do not need someone to mute the waves for you. You need to remember there is a throne higher than the noise.

This short prayer does not waste a word. "The Lord reigns; He is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed, He has girded Himself with strength. Surely the world is established, so that it cannot be moved." That is the foundation laid before any storm shows up. Then comes the line that names exactly what you have been hearing: "The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their pounding waves." Three times he names the noise — repetition that matches what the noise actually does. He is not pretending the waves are quiet. But the turn lands harder than the storm: "Yet the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yes, than the mighty waves of the sea." Mightier than the noise — a different category from louder. The closing anchor is short and reverent: "Your testimonies are very sure; holiness befits Your house, O Lord, forever." When everything else is moving, His testimonies do not. And earlier the throne is grounded for the storm: "Your throne is established of old: You are from everlasting." Old in a way the storm cannot reach. Established before the floods learned how to lift up a voice. The throne does not respond to noise the way you do — it preceded all of it.

• Right now, name out loud the layered noise that has been pounding on you — and follow it with: "The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters." • Write this down: "Which wave have I been listening to like it had final authority?" • Repeat this line when the noise rises again: "The Lord reigns; the world is established; it cannot be moved."

Stop. Breathe. Let the picture of a throne higher than the loudest waves settle into your nervous system, then tell Him exactly which floods have been pounding on you — out loud if you can.

God, You reign, and the throne is older than the storm I am inside. The floods have been lifting up their voice, and I have been listening like they had final say. Remind me that You are mightier than the noise of many waters — not louder, mightier. Establish me in what cannot be moved, because I have been moving with everything that shifts. Holiness befits Your house, and I want to live there. You're still my Shepherd.

Above the loudest floods, the throne is still older and stronger.