Be Still

Slowing down is the whole request here: "Be still my heart and know, You are God alone. Stop thinking so much, and just let go." The opening is a direct address to the singer's own heart, adapted from Psalm 46:10, with an admission added in the next line, "humbly I confess, in my weakness, Your strength is perfect," which is 2 Corinthians 12:9 in a sentence.

The chorus gives the reason for that rest. "For You alone are God, there will be no other" resembles Isaiah 45:5, and "You have won my heart, more than any other" sets the claim in terms of love instead of duty. The resolution is a trade, since the singer says "I will give it all, 'cause You gave it all for me."

The closing section changes the mood. Four times over the voice moves from quiet to praise: "Bless the Lord, oh my soul cries out, all that is within me praise," a refrain that quotes Psalm 103:1 almost exactly. The rest that opened the song turns out to be where the worship begins, and the repeated lines let that build without adding anything new.