Do you have a never-ending “To Do List”? We do. Our household has even turned it into an art form, using various colors and fonts on the computer to add humor and interest. The tendency of most of us is to move from one activity to another, perhaps trying to get as many things on our “To Do List” done as possible so that we can triumphantly cross off a few things at the end of each day.

The Bible has lots to say about taking a break from all the action and being still. Have you read the word Selah before? I’ve found it’s used 75 times in the Bible. Some say it can mean to “stop and listen.” 

A little background on the word. Scholars aren’t exactly sure what it means since it’s a transliteration of a Hebrew word. Some people think it’s an instruction to pause or interrupt the psalm before continuing with the next verse. Other people suggest it’s used to conclude a section of a psalm.  

Whatever the intent of Selah, it is fun to watch for it as you read the Bible. It is always standing on its own and capitalized. And it seems to me that it often comes across as a direct order or instruction, as seen in the following Psalm “Blessed be the Lord who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah” (68:19). 

The Amplified Bible translates Selah as “pause, and think of that.” The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon say it means, “to pause and exalt the Lord.” 

Daniel, a prophet in the Bible, paused three times a day to pray. And when the Pharisees were trying to find a way to destroy Jesus, he “withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all” (Matthew 12:15). The Bible has this statement that is good counsel for all of us: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalms 46:10). We can think of being still, withdrawing from the crowd, and praying as ways of pausing to acknowledge and exalt God, divine Love, the only Creator. I had an experience that taught me a lot about being still and pausing. 

Simply put, I loved being a mom in every sense of the word. I enjoyed the entire experience. When our children were grown, I began to have uncomfortable symptoms often related to menopause. I also began to have episodes in which things visually got rather black and I felt I was going to lose consciousness. While praying to find freedom from these symptoms, I came across this statement from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony” (p. 390). So I knew this was an opportunity to get a better understanding of God, divine Love.

I didn’t look back but mentally went forward in the path God was preparing before me.

These situations of discomfort usually occurred while I was at my desk during my daily spiritual study time. I had learned in Christian Science that I am the image and likeness of God, as stated in Genesis 1. But I felt a need to go deeper into understanding my true identity. One day, when I started to feel the symptoms begin, I reached out to God and listened to hear what He was saying to me. The word pause from menopause came to my thought. I found this passage from Science and Health: “Beholding the infinite tasks of truth, we pause,—wait on God. Then we push onward, until boundless thought walks enraptured, and conception unconfined is winged to reach the divine glory” (p. 323).

That seemed like quite a huge concept. But I started with the word pause. The next time the symptoms started up, I literally paused, became very still, and “waited,” or aligned my thoughts with and became most interested in serving God. I felt God’s boundless power, His infinite presence, and His unending divine law of good. The next few months were filled with an unfoldment of the truth contained in the statement quoted above and a deeper understanding of my identity as God’s beloved expression.

The fact became clear to me that there was unlimited work before me to do and that, although I did not know at the time what those tasks were, God would unfold them to me. I had expected to teach school for quite a while, but my life took a different direction. So I “pushed onward.” I didn’t look back but mentally went forward in the path God was preparing before me day by day. The word enraptured denotes a strong sense of joy. That meant to me that the tasks before me would not be tedious or miserable, but full of deep fulfillment and contentment.

Then one day, as the symptoms were once again occurring, and I began listening for spiritual ideas, the question came: “What does ‘conception unconfined’ mean?” The children that I had been calling mine really belonged to God. It was time to give up this false concept of “Mom” as creator and see that God created them. God is their Father-Mother. He had always been unfolding my children’s identities as well as mine. These dear children were also made in the image and likeness of God. There had never been a moment of material conception followed by toddler, preteen, teenage, and college years. They had existed throughout eternity, “when the morning stars sang together” (Job 38:7).

This spiritual law of truth lifted me to “the divine glory”—to a joy that was not attached to being a mom with children, but to God’s infinite love for all mankind. The symptoms completely dissipated as I continued to pause and pray.

Since then I have continued to find it helpful to practice “Selah” throughout the day—to pause. To me, it is actually a call to action. It is a call to follow Christ Jesus by listening to the Christ-message that is individually tailored to each one to uplift and to be healed. 

Our household still prints out “To Do Lists.” But I try not to let the lists govern my day. I pause, listen, and glorify God for being the Giver of all good. Selah.