It looked like the shoreline was breaking. As Sandra McCracken sat by Radnor Lake to take a phone call, she watched and wondered what was happening. Eventually, she realized: it wasn’t the shoreline. It was a giant snapping turtle, covered in mud, sticks, and algae, who had tricked her eyes. Likely startled by McCracken’s presence, he was swimming away from the shore.

Reflecting on the turtle, McCracken found herself wondering about the ways people, too, retreat at a hint of danger. She considered the ways anxiety pulses in so many in this conflict-ridden election year. She thought about how tempting it can be to blend in with cultural surroundings, just like the turtle.

“But Scripture calls us out into deeper waters,” writes McCracken at CT. “Avoiding risk and conflict is not the foundation for real peace; the fear of the Lord is. And his word animates us to pursue it (Ps. 34: 11–14).”

McCracken goes on to encourage readers to engage in intentional stillness. Before anything else—watching the news, casting a vote, making a meal—stillness. “To worship God in this way,” she explains, “is to point to his faithfulness, past, present, and future.”

May confidence in Christ grow within us as we heed God’s call to be still, trusting that in doing so, we will better understand how to engage the world around us.