How many of you feel tired and overwhelmed with everything that has taken place thus far in 2020? M-E-E-E! I say loudly with my hands raised in the air! This year has been a doozy! Nothing has gone the way we’ve planned and it seems that there has been a never ending cycle of news, events, frustrations ,and disappointments. Everyday has been a flurry of thoughts like: “What else can happen? or “These people are crazy!” to “Lord, help us all!”
I have so many thoughts, to-do lists, unfinished projects, and a host of other things that I either need to do or want to do, that I feel sometimes like I’m burning both ends of the candlestick. I feel more unorganized now than I ever have. Many times I have felt like a big ball of confusion! Am I the only one feeling like this? My gut tells me I’m not. This year is not what any of us expected it to be.
I have thought long and hard about how I can get out of this spiral I feel like I am in. Coming up with no good solutions on my own, I turned to God. Although I was not expecting Him to give me some long drawn out response on how I could methodically control every area of my life that feels like it’s out of control….. I didn’t expect him to give me the short and succinct answer that He did give. What answer did He give? Three simple words: Rest in Me.
What exactly does He mean by that? I thought. My first thought was that when you rest from something, you either cease from doing something in particular, or you do nothing. I wasn’t so sure that this is what He meant because there is so much that I needed to do. So I began to delve deeper into what that really meant.
After beginning to question if He was saying that I needed to just rest from things in general, or was He merely saying to rest from the cares of this world… here’s what I found. We all at some point, need rest from the many things we have on our plates-work, school, bills, etc. And most of us do rest from these things on off days, or here and there, but probably not as much as we should. But, I believe it went deeper than that.
I believe that He meant the emotions and all that comes with the cares of this world are what I need the most rest from. But what emotions are they? I can attest to the fact that I have certainly felt anxiety, fear, helplessness, sadness, frustration, and anger just to name a few. I don’t know that I have felt the entire gamut in one day, but certainly a few in the same day. The other thing that I came to realize is that all these emotions are connected by a central theme-chaos or confusion.
” For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints”, (1 Corinthians 14:33 KJV). Chaos is being in a state of utter confusion. While these emotions by themselves can bring feelings of despair on their own, together they can bring about a whirlwind of confusion and stress.
Studies have shown that stress causes the body to produce an influx of hormones, including cortisol and adrenaline. Anyone who has experienced stress has possibly experienced your body tensing up, your heart rate speeding up, blood sugar and blood pressure rising and probably a host of other things. This type of constant reaction can cause irreparable damage to the body. Not to mention that it can also cause damage to your emotional health as well.
Thinking about all of this led me to think of the scripture that says, ” Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”, (1 Peter 5:8 KJV). These emotions send a message to your brain as a perceived threat that sets off alarms throughout your body and puts us in a fight or flight mode. The majority of our battles start first in our minds, which is where the enemy tends to attack us first. We must be able to recognize the things that could potentially steal from our health and well-being.
As I thought about it more, it also brought to mind the parable of the seed and the sower in Mark 4:1-20. To sum it up, when a farmer scatters seed, some of the seed falls on the path, some among weeds and thorns, and some fall in good soil. The seed that falls on the path and not in the ground gets eaten by the birds and never has a chance to take root. The seed that falls among weeds and thorns gets choked out by the weeds because the soil is shallow and the seed can’t properly take root. The seed that falls on good soil is able to take root, produce a crop, and multiply.
In this parable, Jesus was explaining to his disciples that the word of God is the seed. The word is given and some as soon as the word is heard, allow the enemy to immediately snatch it away before it can even begin to take root. Others hear the word, allow it to take root but only to a point.
Because they are so consumed with the cares of this world, they don’t allow the word that was received to penetrate their hearts and their minds. At least not enough to change how and when they respond. Those who allow the seed to take root in their lives, and then cultivate it so that it can grow, are not constrained by the cares of this world.
Why? They know that God is bigger than any circumstance that they may encounter. And they know that He has already overcome the world. They don’t build their hopes on the temporary things of this world, but instead on things that are eternal. They know that focusing on their heavenly treasures instead of earthly ones will benefit them the most, not only in the end but the present as well.
In all of this, I felt like God was saying although there’s a lot going on around me, don’t be consumed by it all. He was telling me that resting in Him would require me to not look at it from my understanding of what rest was and is. But instead, like the scripture says, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths”, (Proverbs3:5-6 KJV).
Resting in Him requires me to draw strength from His word. To not draw on my own natural ability or perception of the things taking place around me. The enemy would have us to draw on our own strength. This can often lead us in the opposite direction of where God wants us to go. Compounding the situation. But God gave us His word so that we could draw strength from it, Him, and the power of His might.
Resting in Him would require me to quiet my mind in the mist of the chaos surrounding me long enough for me to be still and know that through it all, He is still God. Knowing that He will be exalted above all and rest in that. Because let’s be honest, when your mind is not focused on God and His ability, you can find yourself feeling defeated and that’s exhausting.
When your focus is elsewhere, it takes your mind off allowing God to use you for whatever call He has placed on your life. I can’t tell you how many times I have gotten distracted from operating in God’s purpose on my life by other things.
Our primary purpose in life is to be fruitful and multiply. Multiply what? We are God’s seed and we have been called to multiply His seed in the earth. When we rest and trust in Him, our lives produce fruit that show the character of God.
When God created the earth in seven days, on the third day He said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds (Genesis 1:11-12a KJV).
Each fruit produced had seed within it so that it would continue to multiply. Every seed placed in us through God’s word is expected to replenish itself and multiply exponentially throughout the earth.
When we don’t rest in Him, nothing gets accomplished. It would be as if we are fruit that is spoiling and rotting only to be later thrown away. In this state, we are no good to provide nutrient to the body; nor are our seeds any good to plant and produce more fruit. The seed at that point is essentially contaminated with mold and foreign pathogens and not only useless to the body, but instead poses a threat to it.
Resting in Him changes our vision of “The Vision”. It makes us realize that we serve a purpose and can’t afford to be distracted by the cares of this world.
I’m so glad that I allowed God to open my eyes to what resting in Him truly means. It is so much more than just physical rest, but a spiritual rest that when done right has such benefit to us and those God choses to place in our lives. I encourage you to take up rest in God and rethink how rest is defined in your life.
Yours in Christ,
Nikki