Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Are you BUSY too?

You may have noticed that my blog has been inactive and eerily silent for four months. (But more likely, in life's general chaos, you haven't even missed me ... sometimes I overestimate my own importance!) 

It's almost been like a writer's block, but in truth ... God told me to rest. Not "rest" in the sense of relax, but "rest" in the sense of STOP

Psalm 46:10, in many translations, reads: "Be still, and know that I am God..." In the NLT, it reads: "Be silent, and know that I am God!" The Complete Jewish Bible says: "Desist, and learn that I am God..." God's Word translation says, "Let go [of your concerns]! Then you will know that I am God." And the Holman Christian Standard translation says, "Stop [your fighting] - and know that I am God ..."

For most of my three decades of walking with the Lord, I've been busy ... busy filling my life with good things ... busy trying to live as a "good Christian" ought to live ... busy doing everything I could to erase all the negative things that come against folks ~ shame, rejection, fear, humiliation ... busy trying to fight off all the bad stuff in life and to keep my family from having to deal with it in theirs. But the more I fought against it, the more I honed in on it to "take it out" (I won't think those thoughts; I won't lose my temper; I won't eat all those cookies...), the larger it often seemed to loom on my horizon. There's a reason for that; what we focus on becomes the mainstay of our life. 

I recently heard this acronym for the word BUSY:

B - Bound
U - Under
S - Satan's
Y - Yoke


Seems God's been trying hard to get my attention, and it only took thirty years to do it! I've wasted three decades fighting to earn God's favor, when I already have it! The more we plod through life trying to accomplish what God has already done for us, the more bound and imprisoned we become. He doesn't need us to impress Him. He is already crazy about us! So much so that He let His only Son die, so that He could have a relationship with us. And He did that while we were still thumbing our noses at Him! (John 3:16; Romans 5:8)

So if you are tired, feeling bound and hemmed in, if you are wondering just where is that abundant life God promised me? (John 10:10), it might be time for a divine cease and desist order in your life too. 

It's time for all of us, Christians and seekers alike, to stop "doing" and to start resting in what's already been "done" for us. It's time for us to find freedom. It's time for us to exchange Satan's yoke (busyness) for Christ's yoke: 

"Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

Dear one, you don't need to earn God's love. You need only to receive it. 

Now that's good news!

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Thank you for sharing your thoughts. May God bless you as you grow in Him!