Finding Rest And Finding God

Finding rest is hard work.  Your mind and flesh will fight against you.  First you must overcome inertia; leave comfort and the known.  I had to return a bunch of phone calls from home this morning.  I have to fix a leaking shower head.  I want to hang Christmas lights.  Instead I got in the car to go hike.

Enroute my body told me it craves a hamburger.  I’d eaten lunch; didn’t need food.  I told it I would feed it later.  Once on the trail there came the jumble of thoughts.  I’d come to rest.  I’d come to just be; to experience time with Jesus.  The mind fights that.

Rest isn’t a thing the mind does readily.  Amusement—yes; the 10 hours the average American spends in screen time.  Quiet resting though is a discipline.  I found myself praying for stuff; planning my vacations, blocking out my work week.  I had to actively bring thought back to God; to meditation, to quiet the hum. 

I don’t think the rattle of thoughts is a bad thing.  Perhaps it calls attention to the state of your heart.  Having set aside being busy at home my mind was trying to busy itself with thought.  I found I had to focus on the now.  I told my lungs to breathe deep.  I stood beside a pool and noticed moisture on the sides of the bank; the dry leaves still clinging for it hadn’t been wet enough to wash them downward.  The thoughts continued as I strove to order them.

I saw no visions.  I didn’t find the perfect zone.  Still it’s amazing that as thinking creatures we can seek stillness---that we can wrestle with thought and gray matter to bring it into a place of quiet.  To order our thoughts around meditation and quiet; to focus on God and to listen for Him---and to Him.  Still most amazing is that an infinite God reveals Himself; and allows Himself to be found.

Psalm 107 Meditations

There are seasons in life when God brings us from valleys of darkness into fertile places; lands of milk and honey.
Psalm 107 reads,

“They wandered in the wilderness in a desert region;
They did not find a way to an inhabited city,
They were hungry and thirsty,
Their soul fainted within them.
Then they cried out the Lord in their trouble;
He delivered them out of their distresses.

He led them also by a straight way,
To go to an inhabited city.
For He has satisfied the thirsty soul,
And the hungry soul He has filled with good food.”

Interestingly enough, in verses 35-36,

“He changes a wilderness into a pool of water and a dry land into springs of water;
And there He makes the hungry to dwell,
So that they may establish an inhabited city.”

God sometimes chooses to either lead to an inhabited city, or makes provision to build an inhabited city.

Been thinking about this in light of my present circumstances, a blog post, and phone calls I received this week. ‘Bottom line, her husband wants out and there's not much she can do to stop him. She and I have talked for hours, and it breaks my heart when she asks "Why is it so hard for him to love me?" "How can he do this to me, our children?"’

The conversation last night was an echo of the first one. He’s been out of the relationship for two years. For the first six months he couldn’t see his children. Following that, he could only see them when a court appointed mediator was present. He’s still praying to God for direction. At this juncture, there is still no end in sight.

Then, there was the other phone call. Never good to get a a late night phone call from the mother of your childhood friend. “Did you know Russ has cancer?" My friends’ dad; I'd spent my childhood years in their yard and at their dinner table.

“Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble;
He saved them out of their distresses. He sent his word and healed them,
And delivered them from their destructions.”

Today I find myself in a blessed, glad place. My work is fun, challenging, and allows me to be myself. Doors for ministry continue to open. Financially, I find myself on stable ground (finally!). Surrounded by countless good male friends and possibilities for female relationship as well. Food in the fridge and a roof over my head.

So what can be said to those fainting in the wilderness? May we continue to cry out to the Lord. Repeatedly the Psalmist says, “They cried out to the Lord in their trouble…” Let us look forward to deliverance, and the inhabited city. Hopefully, it will come soon and in this lifetime. If not, for those who are His, it will come soon enough, and will be a permanent deliverance from affliction and destruction.

On that day, we will be able to say with the Psalmist,

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His lovingkindness is everlasting. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary…”
and let us look to the coming of the holy city when God will be among us, “and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death, any mourning, any crying or any pain.

“Who is wise? Let him give heed to these things, and consider the lovingkindness of the Lord.”