Save your sanity aha’s to finding rest in the lord. Learning how a short-term hospital stay left me questioning how to rest in the Lord.
It started off as any typical Tuesday, pick the kids up from their school after I get off work. Only this day as I was waiting in the car line for one of my kids to get out, I was rear-ended. The jolt was jarring and left me in complete panic because I was six months pregnant. Already flowing with emotion due to the life growing inside me, I developed back, neck, and head pain and was urged to go to the hospital.
At the hospital, I was told a whole bunch of scary things that could be wrong with the baby that they wanted to rule out. What was supposed to be a few hours of observation turned into an overnight visit. The experience was traumatic, to say the least, but after settling into the reality of what was going on, I knew God required me to rest to get me through this.
#1 Submitting to Rest
Throughout my life. God has drawn me back to rest. At first, I examine rest as if I were trying to see it from all possible sides. If I were to rest, what would that set me back? How would I operate moving forward? Who would pick up the slack? How much more work would be on my plate after the rest was over? At this point, I weigh if rest is a feasible option. When I don’t listen to His gentle nudge and continue to operate in my flesh, He forces me to rest. He does this with forced hospital stays and temporary bodily injuries. When I finally submit to God’s lesson on rest, I find myself getting out of the way so He can teach me a lesson or two about how to operate in this season of life.
#2 Busy and Rest
Rest is an opportunity to be reunited with God, a chance for us to slow down our busy lives and sit before the Creator. Even in the seasons of being busy, we can focus on prayer, fasting, and resting in God’s presence. Rest goes as far back as God’s creation. It is our gift from the Lord. The Bible tells us in Psalms 46:10 to “be still and know that I am.” That “be still” part is the beginning of rest. It’s only when you are still that He moves on your behalf.
Rest in God’s eyes is not to be seen as an afterthought but as a way of life in cohabitation with animals and nature. Rest takes us further with God. It is needful and necessary to know God on a more intimate level.
#3 Open Hands and Rest
When I had my overnight hospital stay, I finally realized, in order to rest in the Lord, I need to give up the control I thought I had. A lot of why we don’t rest in the Lord has to do with our need to control the things we think we can.
In my case, God showed me I was lacking trust in the Lord.
There’s a beautiful image that one of my friends told me about years ago. Control is like a closed fist. You’re holding onto that thing so tightly you can’t see the blessings God wants to put in the palm of your hand. When you open your fist (release control to God), you’ll be able to receive what He has for you. Some of you are good at resting in the Spirt, and others need to be reminded that it is okay to rest. Ultimately, being still is a good thing, one in which God wants to show us new things. The question is this: Are you willing to be still enough to listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit?
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