TOTHEUNTAMEDHEART.

In December, I took a whole month of work off to rest and spend time with my family. I remember my friend messaging me a week into it, asking me how I was feeling, to which I responded that rest is hard. I had to rewire my brain to be still and be okay with it. I had to break off the lies that said my sitting on the couch doing absolutely nothing was my being idle or lazy and I had to ask the Lord to renew my mind so I could allow myself to receive what I so badly needed in that season- joy, peace, rest, slow moments- and I had to loosen my grip on all of my pieces of striving and perfection.

After that month off, I knew the Lord was asking me to adopt His rest and make room for it. He wanted (and still wants) me to keep pace with him and choose to put Him, who He desires me to be, and the fruit He waters me to bear in front of my own ambition and workload. I thought the consistency of having Sundays and Tuesdays off every week would cease the striving and the breaking off of all the things that make rest hard. But the reality is every week we re-break. Every Tuesday I have to break ties with the voice that tells me I should be editing, messaging, calling, shooting, cleaning. I have to speak to myself in gentle kindness, encouraging myself not to rush through my prayer journal because I have no where to be and nothing to do. This is what today is about. Sit in this. Soak here. Rest.

Psalm 107 promises,

“…He also can turn a barren wilderness into an oasis with water! He can make springs flow into desert lands and turn them into fertile valleys so that cities spring up,

and He gives it all to those who are hungry.”

If I’m hungry enough for rest, and I allow myself to be emptied, waiting for Him to fill me, He won’t just give me a small portion. He’ll give it all. He’ll open the floodgates and break through every barren area in my life. He will allow things to grow in the places I don’t quench, and not only in a singular area, such as Tuesdays alone. My rest on Tuesdays flows out into every day of the week. Thats how He works. There is always more.

Moses and Aaron stood in the Wilderness of Zin facing off with all of the Israelites. Two against everyone, and that everyone was a lot of angry hangry people who were thirsty and didn’t see a source. There wasn’t a body of water in the Wilderness of Zin.

I imagine Moses and Aaron grieving their sister, and the people gathering against them. Grieving a death and being given grief, the attack was internal and external, and I imagine the swelling. You know the feeling well, I’m sure. When the overwhelm is so high that you just can’t see a way out.

They left the angry people the Lord had sent them to save and fell facedown before the Lord in the doorway of the tent of meeting. It doesn’t say they said anything to the Lord. It just says they manned their position and laid facedown.

Facedown says a lot. Facedown says empty and depleted. Facedown says dependent. Facedown says desperate.

They laid there and the glory of the Lord met them there.

God told Moses and Aaron to go start speaking to the rock in view of all the people and water would flow.

The Lord didn’t wait to show up until they could find the words to precisely know exactly what they needed and He didn’t ask them to lift a finger to give water to a thirsty people. He simply said go back to where you stood in opposition and speak life to that rock and I’m going to spring forth water from a hopeless place. Because nothing is hopeless.

When we can understand that we can position ourselves in rest. We can believe that worship is our weapon. We can be joyful in the turmoil. We can lay facedown, knowing the Father is just waiting for us to come to the doorway of the tent of meeting.

Think about it: our Father led by example when He created everything by the power of His words. His life breath doing the work- not His hands. And that is something to marvel over- in a world that says to hustle more, work ten jobs, make the most money, figure it out yourself, have ten year plans and work your butt off,… and the Lord says to stop hustling and watch what flows out of our dependence on the depth of our intimacy with Him.

Father, let me rest remembering all the productivity that flows out of it. Remind me that there is a well here, and if I commit my will to wait on you- to depend on you- my whole being will be filled to overflow. Thank you, Father, that I never have to be depleted because you give it all to me when I empty myself. Amen.