What A Sweet Rest It Is

This morning when I fell apart, not really, but more than I have in a while, and after I cried to my husband apologizing because I didn’t respond in the nicest way, when I got alone with the LordI heard loudly and clearly in my spirit the word “Rest,” over and over. When I would start to pray my mind would go quiet (and that is rare) and I’d hear “Rest.” Those close to me, they know I go and go and go until I can’t go anymore. I take, take, take until I can’t take it anymore. I will stuff everything all in until I literally explode. I do this when I’m in my own strength and relying on my flesh, sometimes stuffing in wanting to be more like Jesus when sometimes I know He tells me to speak and I don’t speak. There have been more times recently than I’d like to recognize or admit that I have been disobedient when the Lord has told me to do something, whether it was something as simple as get off your phone, or whether it’s admitting I’m wrong (when I was) and then shutting my mouth, or to just be. To stop moving. To rest.

As I was hearing Him say “Rest,” to me, I kept trying to argue because I have 5,000 things to do, but my mind would just hush and hear Him say “Rest. I said rest, my child.” My insides felt like an earthquake and I said, “Yes, Lord. I hear You.”

So I did physically rest most of the day. I would want to get up and do something and have every intention to but I just sat with my family around me. This was after I finished the dishes though, because I had started them before I broke, I needed to run the dishwasher, and they had been piling up since at least Wednesday.

Then around 4:30 I needed to go pick up my Target order due to having to get stuff at three different stores this weekend as each was out of something we needed…. and I had an allergic reaction to a lotion I switched to and needed to get an emergency moisturizer until I heard back from the company I get my skincare from. As I was going to pick up this order I was finishing listening to a show I listen to and one of the preachers on there was remembering an experience of when he was freed from cigarette smoking. I’ve heard him tell the story many times and this time he just said something along the lines of, “Like when I got freedom from smoking, it wasn’t that switching to bubble gum or toothpicks was going to save me but I was satisfied with the fact that at least I’m doing something, at least I’m trying, but it wasn’t until I stopped doing something and just believed and rested in that belief that I got freedom and I didn’t have to try to do anything.” There it was again. I know this, and have experienced this freedom and rest, but though this was a similar reminder, it was different.

Now when I got home, I did do a few things because I’m a mom and a wife and my house looked like a bomb went off; and I told my daughter I would clean the swing off and put the swing on their early Christmas present, and I needed to wash my hair. But I did continue to rest to a degree. I made frozen pizza and mac’n’cheese for dinner instead of cooking a gravy, and my husband helped me with baths tonight for the kids without me asking and I didn’t do much after bedtime for the kids and dinner. I did get on my phone like I do every night when everybody goes to bed, but when I got off and got still with the Lord I heard the words again, “Rest.”

For the past couple of weeks and especially throughout this last week I’ve just been racking my brain, wanting to do what the Lord has called me to do, about bursting at the seems to write or do something but also being “too busy” to do anything while I’m asking the Lord what He wants me to do. Weird, us humans. The Lord steadily giving me revelation and correction throughout the week and as He does, I’m still feeling myself spiraling from the busyness that our society demands and that I get so distracted by and allow myself to get caught up in. Then as I’m praying tonight, way after I should have been praying, because there I was distracted again, after I was watching this show with two women discussing different aspects of Christianity who got some things right but also some things wrong, it dawned on me. I saw those women differently than I might have seen them a year or two ago. I saw them as two women at different spots in their walk with the Lord and in a different spot than me. I saw them as two women who knew the basics of the Gospel, still themselves not fully agreeing with one another on different parts of Christianity, but able to discuss this while also recognizing that they are not sure, and I saw them as two women who did not have the understanding that I now have that I did not have a year ago, or three or six years ago. I looked like one of them six years ago and I looked a little like the other probably four years ago. There are some parts of the Gospel that you just cannot get wrong, but there are many things in life that we have to experience and learn on our individual timelines as our Faith is grown, and sometimes we have to learn the hard way because we are either stubborn, prideful, ignorant, have wrong desires, or maybe even enjoying one of our sins too much in order to humble ourselves, repent, and allow the Lord to teach us, or we’re just not ready for the Truth. But I know that the basic tenant of rest applies to everything, because we need to rest in what Jesus did for us at the Cross. We rest our identify and faith and put down our doing while resting in Him and allowing Him to do in and through and for us. The things the Lord has called me to do and wants me to do I cannot do like He wants me to until I rest in Him, put down my abilities and timelines and whatever else I need to put down and just allow Him to lead and work through me. Whether its for my health, taking care of my family, working, or writing, He wants to guide me, He wants to help me, He wants to use me, but I have to let Him first.

The Lord had been telling me this leading up to Saturday, little by little, this new experience and understanding of His rest was happening. All starting when I was reading Psalm 91 around the beginning of September as I’m making my way through Psalms, the passage title including, “GOD IS A REFUGE AND A FORTRESS,” and the Lord poured into my spirit as I read this passage like I was reading it for the first time. Then as I finished the passage the Lord dropped in my spirit, “Read this to Zelda,” but I didn’t until after I just so happened to watch a Sunday night service from an out of town church on 9/11 because I was caught up on our Bible Studies at my church and guess what it was on…yep, Psalms 91 and about RESTING in Jesus and this is just something that I really don’t think many Christians understand or have gotten ahold of even if they understand that they are to rest, they might not know how to rest yet. We cannot tap in and access all of what God has to offer and has planned for us if we are not able to and resting in Jesus. Then I did read the scripture to Zelda as we were baking and felt the Lord building my Faith and encouraging me in that moment and I realized He told me to do this for the both of us. Then a few weeks later, one of our preachers preached on Psalm 91…Now you will never convince me this wasn’t God. I just can’t explain all the little details and revelations I’ve had over just the past two months but I do know and can explain that God is faithful, He will change your thoughts, He will change your heart, He will change your behaviors, and desires and anything you lay down for Him to. We just gotta stop being the problem.

These things mentioned before were all little revelations I had throughout the day after He initially said “Rest.” Some more things I saw today and appreciated a little more and did for the first time in a long time was just lay on the couch and do nothing, and sit under my heating blanket, lay beside my husband on the couch and watch our two little nuggets come walking and giggling towards us and lay on us with a family group hug, to truly look at their faces and soak it all in without moving on to the next thing, to not stress about the next thing I needed to do, to sit in the presence of God and not say anything and just listen (though I regret not listening sooner to do so longer) stayed up long enough to be in the middle of the floor typing when my son woke up and sleepily came walking in and realized I was sitting in the living room floor and shockingly smiled and sweetly melted in my arms and I rocked him for a few minutes then put him in the bed instead of half asleep walking him back to his room as he was half asleep leading me to. I got to pluck my eyebrows, moisturize my daughter’s face with a little more intentionality, give my dog a treat with a little more cheer in my voice…and quite a list of small things that meant so much. I do most of these things often, but today I did them without the thoughts in my head swirling on to the next thing. Was I still forgetful and moved on to different tasks before completing the first task? Yep, but I didn’t stress out about it and I stayed in each moment a little longer than I would have if they would have happened yesterday because I was resting, in Jesus. Did I still mess up? Yep, because I’m human but I felt and knew His correction and guidance as I repented and depended on Him. I was a little more patient and relaxed and less worried. I’m so thankful I notice those moments now and I don’t ignore them as much as I used to. Sometimes those moments of needing to repent hurt, some more than others, but that hurt is taken when I lay them at the foot of Jesus.

I want to be more like Jesus, and I want to love like Jesus. I want to forgive and correct and teach like Jesus. I want to walk and talk and live as Jesus’ hands and feet, truly. I want to do what He has called me to do, and I know He has told me to, but I can’t do any of it if I don’t have my Faith anchored solely and completely in Jesus Christ and Him Crucified. If I’m not laying down my life, picking up my Cross, and resting in Him then I’m not trusting and depending on Him, but my own self and my abilities. I don’t have to die because I’m already dead in Christ and made new in Christ, but I do have to deny my fleshly desires and abilities and rest in Jesus. And, we can only pick up our Cross and rest in Him when we place our Faith in what Jesus Christ did for us at the Cross, the bearing the burden of our sin and death, dying and being resurrected so that we could live this life victoriously, be saved and sanctified at the moment of salvation and progressively until we leave this Earth, to be healed, to be free and whatever else we might need, even and especially in washing that load of clothes, breaking up another fight, holding a child after tears...whatever you need, He is the answer, the only answer, and the Cross was the means to make a way for our answer.

I’ve been really distracted lately and I pray the Lord helps me to see which distractions are getting in the way of His will from my life and see when I need to step away even when the distractions might be a necessary part of life. I know, whatever the day, whatever the situation, I need to and can rest in Jesus and oh, what a sweet rest it is!

Psalm 91

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High

Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress:

My God; in him will I trust.

Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler,

And from the noisome pestilence.

He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust:

His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night;

Nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness;

Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand;

But it shall not come nigh thee.

Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold

And see the reward of the wicked.

Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge,

Even the most High, thy habitation;

There shall no evil befall thee,

Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

For he shall give his angels charge over thee,

To keep thee in all thy ways.

They shall bear thee up in their hands,

Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder:

The young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him:

I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

He shall call upon me, and I will answer him:

I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.

With long life will I satisfy him,

And shew him my salvation.