Sometimes I am not comfortable admitting that I didn’t do anything on an unscheduled afternoon. No catching up on emails or texts or podcasts. No housework or yardwork. No laundry or grocery shopping. Not even phone calls or Solitaire. And I didn’t answer the door if the doorbell rang. Our culture doesn’t often look kindly on such seemingly misspent hours.
Maybe just a neighborhood walk. Or maybe just a walk in my postage-stamp-sized yard and garden. I wandered and thought. I sat and maybe nodded off. I admired the collected things on the shelf that make me smile or laugh or tear-up. I watched the birds chasing each other from lilac to maple to apple trees. I sat in the glider and closed my eyes and listened to nature.
This is the occasional state of heart and mind I have been pursuing on and off for several years. Learning to rest. Just rest. Not rest as in sleep in my bed at night. But rest. The resting on the inside that might look like, dare I say it, laziness. Idleness. Being still without agenda. Feeling safe, protected, securely held. Quieting your mind and body so you can hear nature singing its song for you.
And then the Lord brings a word or a phrase or a full verse to my mind which I begin to gnaw on and before you know it I’m feeling refreshed, able, supplied according to the Lord’s will for me.
The Lord will quiet my mind, your mind, as we seek some space for gently acknowledging our whirls of busyness, even of good and helpful things, are not always profitable for our health and well-being and, thus, not supplying us with what is necessary for receiving God’s care for us and then caring for others, for ministering to and with others.
Choosing to be grounded in what we know to be true is the touchpoint for rest and refreshment and equipping for caring for ourselves and those around us. May I gently but firmly exert some pressure here … if you are not spending at least a few minutes daily in quiet reflection of God’s Word you are not taking good care of yourself.
You are precious to the Lord and He wants you to know that. How will you know for the hard days that He will quiet your heart with His love if you don’t explore at least a little bit of His Word every day? How will you encourage your friend, mom, sister, daughter if you haven’t identified some go-to verses that will, indeed, quiet your heart.
A dear friend shared this verse with me several years ago. I’ve probably shared it with you more than once. It has been a gift re-visited and a gift offered to others so often. Read and then rest …
The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by His love;
he will exult over you with loud singing. Zephaniah 3.17 (emphasis added by me)
May you be blessed, as you have blessed others, with God’s love and kindness, Colleen