Rest

God has made us for Himself, and our hearts can never know rest and perfect satisfaction until they find it in Him.

-- Hannah Hurnard

Rest.  Our hearts long for rest, to be swallowed up in the embrace of our Maker, to be silent and peaceful in the presence of our Lover; yet for so many, our hearts have been trained to feel incomplete, useless, ineffective when we rest.  The American culture, that I've perfected in mirroring, looks down on anyone who is not involved in three sports plus another extracurricular, spends any free time with friends, and is able to function on a few hours of sleep before the cycle continues.  But where does God fit into this cyclic cancer?  When do we mirror God's simple act of resting?  At what point are we putting self over God by allow busyness to consume every waking minute?

In Psalm 62, David speaks of the source of his peace: "Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from Him."  David is making the connection that hope comes with rest, and so in the reversal, there is a symptom of hopelessness that comes with the disease of busyness.  Yes; I understand that busyness is sometimes good, for God calls us to ministry and to be used by Him.  But He does not call us to get burnt out from always doing everything and never saying no.  This disease of busyness has racked by body and spirit for years, and in my pride, I saw the disease as an accomplishment, something I had fought hard for and had conquered in my own strength.

Thailand has changed that.  Not Thailand or the guest house or the missionaries as individual entities but God using each of those through His divine plan.  I have been spending unprecedented time with God each day, and while the testimony is to His presence in those hours, it is also to the fact that I am doing it through His strength and not my own.  I was told once that a orchestra does not first play the symphony and then tune their instruments; in the same way, we are called, first and foremost, to "tune" our day by being in the presence of God.

For me, some of the busyness of life is unavoidable, but for those which are self-burdening, God has been calling me to lay them at His feet, placing Him as priority over my day and, as a result, allowing it to become His day.  And so this has been my journey.  Among some other things, God has spoken one word loud and clear: REST.  I pray that you will find time today, tomorrow, this week to not just make a spot for God in your day in which you can rest with Him but also make it so that your day is orchestrated by the Author of Time, for His hand is the one that pours out the power and mercy to lead our hearts and lives closer and closer to His will.