I used to listen to the radio every single night as a kid. And, like most kids, I tuned into the light rock station. Okay, maybe not like most kids. As my eyes weighed heavy in between classics like Total Eclipse of the Heart and Lady In Red, right around midnight, my favorite show came on: Paul Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story.”

If you regularly listened to this classic radio staple like I did, you just read that title with the deep, unmistakable voice of Paul Harvey in your head – complete with the pregnant pause: “Now…the rest of the story.”

And boy, could Mr. Harvey tell a story. He became known for filling us in on the lesser known or nearly unknowable facts of stories from every day life. We loved it, of course. I certainly did. I think I loved it not only because Mr. Harvey could communicate so well, but also because it fulfilled a deeply felt human desire: to know the rest of the story.

We love to know what’s going on. We love to get the “behind-the-scenes” on things. At least I do. It helps our stories make sense. Unfortunately, we don’t get a lot of that on this side of eternity. Things happen and we are left unable to make sense of them as we experience them. We don’t have a “Rest of the Story” segment on our lives.

This got me thinking earlier this week about the other kind of “rest.” The pause. The ceasing. The waiting. The little black rectangle on a sheet of music that means “you don’t do anything here.” Rest can be a very difficult nothing to do. Especially when we’re convinced that everything in our lives would turn around if we could just do or say the right thing at the right time; if we could just hit the right note. But there are no notes for us to hit during this part of the tune. There’s just a rest sign.

Did you know there’s a rest sign in Scripture? It comes in Psalm 46:10: “Be still, and know that I am God…” And at what point exactly does this rest sign come? The first verse in the chapter tells us: “God is our refuge and strength. An ever-present help in trouble.” That’s the context: trouble. When I’m in trouble, I want to act. I want to make the right move, take the right medicine, or have the right conversation. Then everything will be okay.

So many of you are in trouble. You’re sick, you’re betrayed, you’re uncertain, you’re frightened, and you want God to tell you the rest of the story. And he will not do that today because you cannot know the rest of the story while you are in the REST of the story. The part where you need only to be still. The part where you sit down for chats with your heavenly father who prepares a table for you in the presence of your enemies.

God is always working. Always. So close your eyes today and take a deep breath. Sink deep into the arms of your heavenly father who loves you. Tell him you don’t understand and that you wish you did. And then tell him you trust him, because he will carry you all the way through the rest of your story.