Selah

“Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Selah” (Psalm 4:4 NKJV)

I’ve always loved the word Selah from when I first read it in a Bible devotional. I was reminded of the word recently when it came up on Spotify while I was driving. Forrest Frank had released a song called Selah and my 8 year old son who was in the car with me got really excited. I honestly think my son is his biggest fan. I know where he is in the house because his angelic tones are singing a Forrest Frank song from that particular room. Anyway my son asked me what selah means and I told him. 

For the past few weeks God’s kept putting the word selah into my mind. I’m a recovering people pleaser and over the years I’ve put in a lot of work to overcome this through having therapy, reading self help books about it and once I became a follower of Jesus, through reading the Bible. I now have strategies in place to know when and how to create healthy boundaries, now at times I lapse (I’m only human after all), however now my inner alarm alerts me straightaway when I'm verging into problematic people pleasing and I adjust accordingly. 

Since becoming obedient to God, I’ve learnt to use the gift that God originally gave me, but got corrupted by the world, for its original purpose. So now I use my maladaptive person pleasing traits for good, to be a helper and serve for God in various ways and one of the ways I do this is through this blog you are reading. 

Anyway I write all this to say that over the past few weeks when God kept putting the word “Selah” into my mind. Being the natural server that I am, I assumed that it was God telling me to write a blog post for you all about selah. So off I went and started typing. However, unlike other times when I write, I kept getting distracted and couldn’t focus. 

As I was trying to type I felt the Holy Spirit telling me that the lack of focus was because I needed to “selah”, stop writing and go away. We had our summer holiday coming up and I thought I could get the blog post done before I go and then rest on holiday. Now God knows me well, like He does us all! When I try to ignore Him, even if I think it’s with good intentions, He will use my husband to give me the same message.

So as I was struggling to get past the second paragraph, my husband said to me that maybe I should go with the distraction, stop, rest on holiday and start again after my rest. God did it again, He checked mate my stubbornness by making my husband repeat God's message lol. 

I then felt the Holy Spirit say to me that I’ll let you write again after you have rested. As always, God was right, I was so fixated on helping people know about Jesus and how He is the answer to our problems, that I was risking burn out. I’m juggling a very busy full time job, motherhood, being a wife, a daughter and discipling to others for the Kingdom in the various ways that I do. As a result, the people pleasing traits were creeping back in and God told me that I needed to “selah” and rest. So I finally listened, closed the laptop and went on my holiday.

After all, we can't keep pouring from our cup, even with good intentions, because it will eventually run empty and we can’t pour from an empty cup. That leads to exhaustion, we need to refill with “selah”. 

Meaning 

Selah means pause or reflection. It is also used in music to describe a musical interlude or a change in musical accompaniment. It is used so the listener really takes in and mediates on what they have just heard. Selah is mentioned 74 times in the Bible, mainly in Psalms which are songs. 

So to me it’s clear that God wants us to stop, pause and take in what has just happened in our lives.

Rest 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”. (Matthew 11:28 NIV)

It is important to rest. The range of symptoms that our mind and body display are really symptoms to show us if we feel safe or not. That is really all our body understands. All the feelings and emotions we have, like happiness and anxiety, essentially fall into two camps: safe or unsafe. 

I heard Dr Anita Phillips say that when we have the physical symptoms of our bodies not feeling safe, symptoms like headaches, heart palpitations and upset stomachs. Science has shown that to get feelings of safety again, the first two things we need to check the body needs are food and drink. The third thing is… you guessed it, it’s sleep. We need rest to regain our basic feeling of safety. 

Pause to mourn trauma

“The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over”. (Deuteronomy 34:8 NIV)

It is important to pause, mourn and grieve the traumatic events in your life. Whether that is a: 

• Death of a loved one.

• Abuse from anyone-  that can be physical, emotional, sexual, verbal, psychological, financial or anything else in between. 

• Birth trauma.

• Being bullied- at school, university, church, mosque, temple or work.

• A car accident.

• Illness or illness of a loved one, be it physical or mental.

• Being cheated on in a relationship.

• A divorce.

If you don’t grieve and process this for a period, then it will come out one way or another. It can even come out in physical symptoms. A study from NYU found that black women are often under diagnosed with depression because they display physical symptoms, rather than the classic mental symptoms displayed in other races. Examples given of how depressed black women present are fatigue, insomnia and decreased libido rather than the classic symptoms of feelings of helplessness. 

Professor Shanika Lavi Wilson also listed changes in appetites, body aches and pains and gastrointestinal issues as symptoms that black women who have depression present with. 

Regardless of what ethnicity or gender you are, it is important to pause and process the traumatic event or events. The biggest killer for men under 50 in the UK is suicide. I sometimes wonder if the suicide rate would reduce if more men felt safe to stop and process their trauma.

If you have gone through trauma, then I know what happened to you was horrible, hard and in some cases life changing. That’s why it is important to process it and grieve it. It won’t make it go away but it prevents it from taking over your life and stopping you from fulfilling your purpose. 

Don’t just take my word for it, God said it himself. In the scripture quoted above (Deuteronomy 34:8). When Moses died, God told the Israelites to pause for 30 days and grieve, cry and mourn for Moses and they did this. God gave them a pause a “selah” and then told them to carry on with their travels- their assignment. Now notice, God didn’t tell them to just mourn forever, he gave them a set time to do it and then to continue with the purpose He had given them. That’s healthy mourning, it doesn’t mean you have to forget the person or the trauma but that it doesn't consume you and preventing you from living your life. 

This is what God wants for us, He certainly wants us to pause, grieve and process the trauma, whatever it is but He doesn’t want us to stay in the state of grief because doing that stops us from continuing with the purpose that God has planned for us. 

So pause to grieve and mourn the death, the heartbreak, the abuse, the betrayal, not meeting society’s life goals (and in some cases biblical life goals) because you aren’t married, not in a relationship, don’t have kids or not where you want to be in your career. The only people who win if we don't mourn and process are the abusers (if you were abused) and the devil because the devil will use anything, including your trauma, to keep you from fulfilling God’s assignments and purpose in your life.

Pause to transition- the wilderness season 

“Indeed, I would wander far off, And remain in the wilderness. Selah”. (Psalm 55:7 NKJV)

I mentioned earlier that the term “selah” is used in music to mean a change in musical accompaniment, such as when the singer pauses so only the instruments are heard or the melody changes during the song. God bringing pause into our lives can also mean change is coming and He is telling us to prepare for this transition in our lives.

God doesn’t do coincidences and this is once again shown in the Deuteronomy 34:8. God deliberately told the Israelites to pause and mourn in the plains of Moab. The plains of Moab were situated East of the Jordan river and opposite Jericho. God wanted them to pause there because they were going to transition from the wilderness, led by Moses, to the promised land, led by Joshua and God needed to prepare them for this. The plains marked this transition point… the selah (pause) point. 

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil”. (Matthew 4:1 NIV)

Fast forward to Jesus’ transition, again this same area (Jordan river) is used for Jesus’ transition. This is to highlight Jesus’ presence throughout the Old Testament, as God the Son. Once Jesus completed his selah (pause and reflection) season in the wilderness for 40 days, with the devil trying and failing to tempt Him, Jesus was baptised in the Jordan river. This marked his transition into the next stage of his earthly life which was his 3 year ministry. Before Jesus transitioned into the next stage of The Father’s plan, God the Father needed to prepare him, which is why Jesus was sent to the wilderness for 40 days.

My selah periods

Apart from this recent mini selah period that I’ve just had so I could fully enjoy my holiday with my family. I’ve had a selah moment in the past, when God was preparing me for a transition. God isolated me for a time, what some would call a wilderness season. I really had to reflect and grieve trauma and use the time to get into God’s Word, the Bible, to prepare me for the transition He had planned. God was preparing to transition and elevate me to do work for His Kingdom and He knew I would need time away from distractions so He could mould me. 

During this pause and transition I lost some friends and family along the way. However, by God giving me selah prepared for me for the losses. Using that time to get into His Word meant that I knew that some people are for a season. They were not meant to continue into my transition period because they may have held me back or made me revert back to my old self. 

Looking back I’m so grateful for that time God gave me to build that intimacy with Him, it was a very special intense time. Also I have a much deeper appreciation for the friends and family that continued with me during my selah and into my transition as I know God ordained it. 

I’m sure that for you your life has its ups and downs, so you will need time to pause, reflect and maybe isolate while you process what has happened. The important thing is that you don’t stay in that limbo place for years. 

So stop to pause and rest to prepare for a transition, whether that is a transition to a place, a job, from a relationship to being single, from a relationship to getting married or a new assignment that God wants you to do.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”. (Philippians 4:6-7 NIV)

As I'm writing this post, I have rested, read the Bible and had fun on holiday away from the stresses of everyday life. I really did selah and now the words are flowing out of me once again. God is of His word, he said he would let me write again once I paused and went on holiday.

On holiday we visited a church and I had a profound experience. After praying and lighting a candle, I turned around and on the wall in front of me was a giant original painting of the last supper. I have seen copies many times but to see an original that's hundreds of years old… Wow! In that moment me and my family paused to truly remember what God has done for us. We all agreed it was a special moment that we will never forget.  In the church’s visitors’ book I wrote “thanks for the peace and selah”. 

So to all reading this please take the time to pause, reflect and grieve the person, the relationship, your trauma or the “what ifs” for a set time. Take time to pause, withdraw and prepare for a transition in life. Whatever the reason for your pause, remember don’t give up hope because your hope is in Jesus and He didn’t give up on you.