March 2008
In this issue:
Flo's Thoughts
“Find rest, O my soul, in God alone”; the melody weaves its way in and out of my brain multiple times a day. Are rest and pain compatible or does the pain force times in bed that have nothing to do with biblical rest? What a battle ensues to find this illusive rest. Still, a noble struggle means experiencing deeper, longer times of prayer, an acceptance rather than resignation to current circumstances, and an ability to know the living God more intimately.
Books teach about prayer, but the doing of it comes with rest. The Christian pilgrim, wanting to know rest, must learn what it is to pray with an open heart. When the Lord visited Abraham, in Genesis 18, Abraham said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord,do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree.” Offering rest, a sign of hospitality in 2000BC, seems a lost art to us. We rush to activities and multitask continually. Yet, we can often hear the Lord through His Word when we rest. Days when we do not feel able to hold the Bible, we can ask the Lord to whisper back previously memorized Scriptures. No guilt trips about not having had a standard quiet time with the Lord that day! We ask the Holy Spirit to quiet our hearts, give us rest, and speak to us through the Word itself. These can yield times of simply contemplating who God is, trying to learn what it means to “Be still and know that I am God.” A greater intimacy comes as we learn who God is, pray with widening self-confession, and ask for specific people and situations. This union of our flesh with the Incarnate One causes a catching of the breath. From that sprays a fountain of praise and thanksgiving. Rest brings a new dimension to prayer.
What a chasm lies between resignation about whatever trials we experience now and the acceptance of the situation as part of God’s will for our lives. In chess, resignation involves “an act of ending a game by conceding defeat without being checkmated.” Do we hear the concept of giving up? However, the Latin origin of acceptance means to “take something to oneself.” When we accept what the Lord has planned for our lives, we work with the Spirit in the sanctification process that toils for our good, our future hope.
Songwriter Debby Jackson writes, “I’ve been through a fire that has deepened my desire to know the living God more and more. Well, it hasn’t been much fun, but the work that it has done in my life has made it worth the hurt. You see, sometimes we need the hard times to bring us to our knees: otherwise, we do as we please and never heed Him. But He always knows what’s best, and it’s when we are distressed, that we really come to know God as He is.” Taking the time and discipline to seek out rest allows us to see a bigger picture, one of a God who loves us, seriously seeks to know us more intimately, and will complete us in His time.
May we find our rest in the Lord. Flo
Spring Bible Studies
Galatians
II Corinthians
Images of Christ
To Live as Christ
Go to the website for all the particulars.
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