Rest

A friend of mine has a dairy farm and along with the hundreds of cows that they have, their lives are filled with four adorable children.  Their youngest daughter is a sweet redheaded little girl. This amazing child enjoys getting up early to milk the cows with her daddy. When I say early I’m talking about 3:45 AM!

Recently she went out to milk the cows with her dad and found herself tired, needing some rest. She put on her dads flannel shirt, crawled into a large round bin of towels in the barn, curled up and fell asleep.

This is such a perfect picture to me of what it means to rest in the Lord.

We cover up ourselves with his love and his grace. We try to get as close to Him as we can.  We are so much like this little girl wearing her father’s flannel.

Wouldn’t it be nice to curl up and get comfortable, letting all our pretenses go, where there is no fear of what we look like, just pure abandonment at His feet?

What we find there is blissful. Contentment is found because we know we are home, loved, embraced and we are safe. “Come to me He whispers”.

How long has it been since

You’ve been there?

You’ve curled up and rested in the presence of the king?

You have felt accepted, loved, forgiven, chosen and adored?

Rest, rest and rest

The word rest in Greek is anapauo

Anapauo means

to rest

relax

to calm

to refresh

Anapauo has the root word pauo in it. Pauo is where we get the word pause. So in essence the word rest in Matthew 11 means to pause, to stop, cease.  Jesus is asking us to come to Him and stop, pause, rest!

I need to crawl up and lay at His feet today! How about you?

The Wrong Shoes

This morning I was in a hurry. I wanted to get to some pesky weeds that had been leering at me. Throwing on shorts, t-shirt, tennis shoes, hat and bug spray, I was going to tackle those bothersome weeds once and for all! Fortunately, I was in the flower bed just in the nick of time! There were weeds on top of weeds! Some were hiding inside of plants and others had no shame at all, they were right there for all the world to see!

An hour later the weeds had been sufficiently plucked from the soil and then I got out the big gun!  Weed spray! Hopefully in my zealousness to permanently remove the weeds no flowers were hurt in the process. 

When I returned inside, I removed my shoes and then it became clear to me! I was wearing two very different tennis shoes!

Honestly, I never even looked at the shoes. I was blinded by my urgency to get the job done! I thought that one felt different from the other one, but never stopped to look at it.

I’d like to say that this is the first time that I wasn’t paying attention, but that would not be the truth!   Sometimes I need to slow down so that I don’t miss the important stuff. This is a sign to me that I need a rest.  Not just sleep, but some soul keeping, tending to the hidden places of my heart and mind.

Like the weeds that have sprung up in my garden I have weeds that need to be tended in my life. I must return to the important stuff not just the urgent ones!

Jesus showed us what the important stuff is.

Children

Relationships

Celebrations

Grace

Forgiveness

Sacrifice

Time with the Father

Restoration

Heaven

Slowing down for this go, go girl is difficult! Only Jesus can adequately cause me to stop and listen. The urgencies of this world are definitely the wrong shoes for me!

It reminds me of this song 

Slow me down oh Lord slow me down
Help my heart to hear Your sound
Speak into my life Lord speak now
Slow me down oh Lord slow me down

Clear my mind oh Lord clear my mind
Bring me peace that I cannot find
Take my worldly thoughts break my pride
Clear my mind oh Lord clear my mind

Wake my soul oh Lord wake my soul
With this mess I’ve made make me whole
Of this life called mine take control
Wake my soul oh Lord wake my soul

Slow me down oh Lord slow me down
Help my heart to hear Your sound
Speak into my life Lord speak now
Slow me down oh Lord slow me down
Slow me down oh Lord slow me down
Slow me down oh Lord slow me down

Robbie Seay Band

Often God speaks to me in the moments of my daily life.  Today I hear Him asking me to slow down, meet with Him and rest. These shoes feel like the right ones!

The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place Mark 6:30-32 

 My prayer is that as you and I encounter the urgent, the challenges and the crazy that we find a holy place. Where we can Go with Jesus and rest.

Turn your heart to praise Him

How in the world did I end up here? I am the happy person. The one people want to know where my joy comes from. The one that doesn’t seem to have any problems. Yet, I find myself in this place.

This is the ebb and flow of life.  Living in the joy of knowing that I am loved and redeemed and in the despair that I can never measure up to who He has designed me to be.

Perhaps it has to do with heart issues that affect the way we feel? We’ve been talking about loving God with all her heart and turning our hearts back to him, but the question remains how do we really do that? How do we turn our hearts back to God when they’ve chosen other things and other people. How do we become face-to-face again with God?

In Psalm 42:5 the Psalmist asks, “Why so downcast O my soul” and then he goes on to say, “put your trust in God.”

Interestingly all of Psalm 42 gives us a picture of someone who once had an intimate relationship with God but now feels the distance. He writes,

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

Have you been here; Totally set free to love Jesus, desiring to be in His presence?

So what happens to us that we find ourselves like the Psalmist crying out in verse 5

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? 

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Downcast- Bowed down, crouching, sinking

Disturbed means literally,

• to growl as a bear;
• to sound, or make a noise, as a harp, rain, waves;
• to be agitated, troubled, or anxious in mind: to moan internally.  (Barnes’ Notes on the Bible )

Here is my version of the verse, 

Why soul are you bowed down, sinking under the weight that you are feeling? Why are you so agitated and growling like a bear?

Life is full of struggles. Each of us face little ones and big ones on a daily basis.

Struggles of

Faith

Finances

Feelings of insecurity, anxiety, anger, resentment, jealousy….

Friendships

Frustrations

Family

Fear

When we turn our heart toward God and see who He is, our hearts can once again rejoice even in the midst of struggles. This is the reason that we can rejoice in the Lord always. Struggles come and go, but His character stays the same!

It is then that we can begin to understand what the psalmist was talking about at the end of Psalm 42:5-6

Why, my soul, are you downcast? 

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God, 

for I will yet praise him,my Savior and my God.

My soul is downcast within me;therefore I will remember you

Let’s focus today on turning our hearts to praising God.

The act of praise flows out of our reverence and gratitude for God. When we praise God for who He is we are invited into a deeper relationship with Him. Praise turns our heart focus from our struggles to the unchanging character of God.

 He is 

• Full of glory  Psalm 138:5
• Great Psalm  145:3
• Wise and powerful  Daniel 2:20
• Good Psalm  107:8
• Merciful and faithful  Psalm 89:1
• The One who saves us  Psalm 18:46
• Keeps His promises  1 Kings 8:56
• Forgives sin  Psalm 103:1-3

Praising God turns our hearts back to Him and when we do, we find peace.

Isaiah 26:3  We will have perfect peace when we trust him

May you today turn your heart to Praise Him.