I Will Give You Rest...

I'm so glad my God is a God who hears me when I cry to Him. As you probably saw in my last post, I've been feeling very tired lately. God has been continuing to call me to REST IN HIM, but I was having trouble figuring out how to do that. It seems that when I get wound up and tense, I just have no idea how to unwind myself, even if I want to. So, again, I am thankful for a God who chooses to quiet me with His love (Zephaniah 3:17?). Have I ever told you about my friend Lisa? I met her many years ago when her son, who is now in high school, was a hilarious student in my Kindergarten class. She had prayed for God to put him in just the right class, and He did. I loved her son. He added a lot of spice to my days. : ) But what neither of us had any idea about was how God was beginning a friendship between us that would be a GIFT for years to come. I love thinking back on the day when Diego was still in my class and she brought me a banana - because God told her to. : ) She wrote something on it... but I can't remember what. And I know she was a little disappointed, I think expecting me to say something about how I had just been praying for a banana! or something like that. : ) I just thought it was sweet and I appreciated it - but the real fruit of it was that I knew she was someone who listened to God. And that was significant. Anyway, several years ago we started praying together and eventually started praying together once a week at 5:30AM at my house. We never had an official agenda or format, other than inviting God's presence to be with us and telling the enemy to stay away and asking the Holy Spirit to speak to us about whatever we needed to hear from Him about. Then we just talk with God. We talk to each other some, but are really most interested in what God has to say. We listen to Him and through the years the time He has done SO MUCH stuff in our hearts I can't begin to tell you about it all. He is SO faithful to reveal what's really going on in our hearts and heads and what the TRUTH really is and when we agree with Him, so much freedom comes! I can absolutely say we are both very different people today because of what God has done in us during those sweet, sweet times. In the last year or so we've invited a few others to join us and it's been even better. The reason I even mention all that is to share what He showed me this last week. I was so tired and worn out from all of my worrying and God graciously took me in His arms and filled me with peace. I was just enjoying resting in His arms when Lisa had to keep praying asking the Holy Spirit to reveal any lies I was believing. I sort of ignored her because I was just enjoying Jesus at the moment. But then I started hearing the lie: you can't rest or relax because you're going to forget something! Something's going to fall through the cracks! That's what I had been believing and what had been keeping me from resting in Him. As I shared with her what I was thinking, I explained it was as if I couldn't sleep because I had to stay on watch, as if there wasn't anyone else to take the shift and what would happen if I let my guard down? Knowing even as I was saying it that God was reminding me that He never stops watching and I CAN let my guard down and rest because He's on duty. : ) Just the day before, Jennifer had sent me a verse on Facebook. It was Psalm 121:1-2. That morning with Lisa and I read Psalm 121 again and it was SO CLEARLY connected to what God was saying to me. Later that morning, I looked up some of the words from it and there are 6 times (in only 8 verses) where God says He watches over us, over my coming and going, etc. In other words, He's got my back. : ) The Hebrew word implies He's on guard duty so I can rest. So this half of March I'm memorizing Psalm 121 and thanking God for bringing me to a place of rest once again. Life is still sort of chaotic around me, but I'm feeling peace in the middle of the storm. Hallelujah!

Psalm 121

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—

where does my help come from? 2 My help comes from the LORD,

the Maker of heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot slip—

he who watches over you will not slumber; 4 indeed, he who watches over Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The LORD watches over you—

the LORD is your shade at your right hand; 6 the sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—

he will watch over your life; 8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going

both now and forevermore.