Rest For Our Soul

The presence of God in our life is a wondrous gift that trumps any other blessing we could ever receive. God calls us to seek His Kingdom before, as well as more than we seek the distractions of the world, the flesh and the devil (Matthew 6:24).

God requires total dedication and surrender (Luke 14:26).  This does not negate the fact that we have a family, job, church and hobbies to participate in; but we do it all through the direction of God’s Spirit and for His glory (1 Corinthians 10:31).

We follow the leading of God’s Spirit through the ear-splitting noise and hectic pace of our life. He brings order from the chaos and peace in the confusion.

He replaces our stress with His rest, if we will only surrender every facet of our life to Him. The first step in entering God’s rest is to spend uninterrupted, quality time with Him (Mark 12:30).

Confusion drowns out the voice of God and causes us to feel frustrated, angry and to experience other negative emotions. However, walking in His presence moment by moment through the duties of our day, brings contentment and peace.

God helps us to prioritize our time and activities. Everyone needs “down” time for our soul – our mind, will and emotions - to catch up, to chill out and to recover from the trauma of life. We need time for our spirit to center into Christ’s life within us (Psalm 46:10).

We do not have to be afraid of not measuring up, or of not getting all of our required work done, or meeting all of the needs of all of the people who depend on us.

If we live one moment at a time, Christ within us directs us to do what pleases Him. Like Mary, we can make the best choice for our day, and sit at Jesus feet within us, no matter where we are or what we are doing (Luke 10:42).

As we praise Him and follow His Spirit, He will allow us to excel in our efforts, to finish what is required of us and to meet the needs of all the people to whom He wants us to minister.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, when You see our agitation rising inside, prompt us to discover the source of the negative emotions and to seek Your wisdom on how to deal with it. Nothing and no one can come against us to overpower us, because You live within us. Remind us to be still and to acknowledge that You are Lord over our life.

Exhort us to rest in You while You work out the issues, which are distracting us from living in Your peace and rest. We trust You with our whole life, because we have faith in Your faithfulness. My soul finds rest in You and my hope comes from You (Psalm 62:5).

Thought for the Day:

We still have hectic activities swirling all around us; however, as we walk in the Spirit, God gives us a quiet refuge, supernatural strength and His constant help in any difficulty we experience.

Walking in the Spirit

Does God actually talk to us? Is it an audible voice, an inner voice, an impression or feeling or thought in our mind? How can we hear God's voice?

We start by developing a physical "closet" in which to meet with God: Under the tree in the garden, a path where we are walking or jogging all alone, a chair in our home where we are uninterrupted, the spare bedroom, the attic or basement, or an actual closet space in our home. 

We go there with our journal and nothing else. No Bible, music, TV or radio. Just a chair and some breathing room without any distractions. We spend time here for thirty minutes to an hour any time during every day and we journal whatever comes to our mind.

At first, it may be lists of things we need to do. Go ahead and jot these ideas in the journal. When we write them down, we clear them from our mind and quiet those "voices" in our head.

Then we may think of Bible verses, a movie clip, a conversation or some event we had in the past; jot it down in the journal. Again it clears our mind of this inner clutter.

Write down concerns or problems as a prayer to the Lord. Then we spend some time praising God for who He is and what He already did in our life. We think of His goodness and grace, and we overflow with gratitude toward Him.

Next is the hard part, which gets easier with practice… LISTENING. With a cleared mind, we listen with our inner, spiritual ear in our spirit to any words the Holy Spirit may whisper to us (1 King 19:12).

We heed and obey His directives and enjoy His comfort and encouragement every moment of every day of our life (Galatians 5:25). We live with His praises on our lips and His peace in our heart, and we eventually learn to pray without ceasing throughout the day (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Prayer:

Father God, teach us to walk by Your Spirit step-by-step. We may falter as we mature from crawling to walking and then running, but we are soon sprinting through life by the direction of Your Spirit, in obedience to Your Word and under the guidance of Your peace.

Help us to yield our life to You, to walk away from the deeds of the flesh (Galatians 5:15-25) and to allow Your peace, which transcends human reasoning, to guide our hearts through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). Fill us with Your fruit and wisdom; and teach us to do only Your will in every circumstance (Galatians 5:22-23; Ephesians 2:10).

Thought for the Day:

We encourage others by offering to pray for them, showing them love even when they are unloving toward us and sharing a testimony of God's love - sometimes without even using words.

Alone With God

How often do we plan to spend some time alone with God, and some earthly distraction looms before us, demanding our undivided attention? We look wistfully at our little prayer chair or prayer closet or secret place and feel the draw of God’s Spirit on our spirit. However, the world pulls our soul – our thoughts, choices and feelings - away from our Beloved Father.

Whenever God claims our attention, Satan makes sure that our mind wanders and our affections are torn. We cannot even finish the train of thought in our prayers before demonic activity highjacks our attention. God longs to liberate us from the demands of our temporal life and to set us free to soar with Him in the spiritual realm. He wants to remove us from our busyness and give us His rest (Hebrews 4:10).

Martha, Jesus’ friend, was distracted by the duties in her world too. She demanded that Jesus order Mary, her sister, to help her to get dinner ready. Jesus told Martha that Mary already chose the best course for her time. There would be plenty of opportunities for domestic activities when Jesus was not in their presence (Luke 10:42). Our duties are always with us too; so schedule time alone with God.

God wants our undivided, focused attention with our vision and thoughts on nothing other than His face. Then God comforts us, inspires us, directs us and loves on us from the depths of our soul. We must jealously guard this time, setting it aside every day or even several times a day. We also commune with God without ceasing all throughout our day (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Prayer:

Father God, You call some of us to the ministry of intercession, and Your Spirit prompts us to lift up certain ones in prayer. Yet, we also spend alone time with You, because in Your presence is fullness of joy and pleasure forevermore (Psalm 16:11). You mold us by Your grace and replace our carnal flesh with the fruit of Your Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). As we contemplate Your glory, You shape us into the image of Christ, our Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Thought for the Day:

Much is accomplished in the spiritual realm when we make the time to spend in the presence of God.