Massage Chair

Although I don’t feel a raw grief any more about Solomon’s death, since August, I have found myself becoming stressed more easily. I have had less patience with my children. Less patience with my husband. I have had to be more conscious in seeking God’s peace in all areas of my life and not just in the areas connected with Solomon’s death.

Being able to have a back massage in my neighbourhood for the price of a Starbucks coffee and cookie means it is an affordable way to help lower my blood pressure!

During the massage I was thinking about how important self-control is in order to maintain the peace and relaxation in my body when I returned home – what is the point of getting a massage if ten minutes later I am tearing my hair out when one of my kids spills a drink or pulls his nappy off for the third time today?

And then, as my head was being pummeled and pushed and my hair pulled in various directions (ow!), I thought about worship.

I think for so long I have missed the point.

Times of worship are to lead us into God’s presence and to experience intimacy with our Creator, so that that intimacy can flow into our lives.

How often do I really think about how I can maintain that intimacy throughout my day?

How often do I consciously maintain self-control in order to keep that connection?

Let the name of the LORD be praised, both now and forevermore – Psalm 113:2

I am not very good at it. But hence, that makes me want to worship more!

How can we consciously and purposefully keep our minds in a place of worship and intimacy?

To be or not to be

God has many servants but few lovers.

I want to be a lover of God.

As I have spent time with God recently, seeking to hear his voice more and more for direction in my life, one of the questions he has asked me has been:

Are you content to just be?

Are you content to just spend time with me?

I have begun to look at ways I can just walk with God, enjoying His presence.

One of the top privileges mentioned in Revelation 3:12 for those who overcome is that they will be made pillars in the temple of God.

Would I be content to spend eternity immobile? Do I grasp the privilege it is to just be in God’s presence?

This morning two of the sunflowers in my garden have flowered. A small white butterfly settled on one of them to have a drink.

The glory and beauty of these flowers is in their being. They don’t do anything. All day they seek the warmth of the sun and follow it wherever it goes.

Their beauty and their fruitfulness is in their being.

I want to be like those sunflowers.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Jesus’ words in John 15 verse 4.

Are you content to just be?

Selah. Pause.

Selah. Pause.

My mother is very good at daily rhythm. Growing up we always had a mid-morning and a mid-afternoon pause, as well as pauses as we ate breakfast, lunch and evening meal. As children we learnt that these were moments to rest, relax, spend time together as a family, and to stop what we were doing. Even now when I visit my mother or she visits me, she still stops mid-morning and mid-afternoon for a cup of tea and a snack. Not being a tea drinker myself, I have never got into the habit.

Recently, as life gets so busy, God has been talking to me about putting rest into my day and not just running from start to finish.

There is something restorative about a moment of quiet. Many of us feel uncomfortable with silences – we try to fill them, we feel them unproductive, perhaps even a waste of time.

But there is something incredibly beautiful that happens when we embrace the natural pauses that there are in a day.

They don’t just have to be about food. It could be a quick walk to the local shop, an early morning sleepy hug in bed before rushing to get in the shower, even a silence that falls when a friend shares her heart with you and you don’t know what to say.

We need moments of rest in our day, not just to catch our breath, but to breathe deeply and connect once again with our creator.

When you read the psalms, you will often see the word ‘selah’ or pause. Far from being awkward silences, these were moments to reflect on the words that had been said. They are moments to connect with the God who brings the words alive. They are moments to receive restoration in our busy lives.

Selah. Pause. Breathe deeply. Connect.

Psalm 46:10: Be still and know that I am God.

Where are you going to fit in a pause today?

When doubt means WAIT

The year I was finishing university, everybody was thinking about what they were meant to do next. My degree was in languages, and my husband and I planned to move to Peru, but that was not going to happen for at least a year.

Up to that point in my life God had always shown me very clearly the next step in my life. He spoke to me clearly about where I was to go to University, about the person I was to marry, about the places we should go to on my language year, about the country we were to live in long-term. On the big things, God had always made the path so clear, so why was there no answer every time I asked about what I was to do next?

I put in an application to study translating and interpreting at Master’s level, yet I felt I would not end up attending the course. I halfheartedly put in a couple of job applications. I considered other avenues of further study. Nothing seemed right. Why was God not showing me what I was supposed to do? I wrestled with doubt, lack of confidence in hearing His voice and confusion.

Finally, God spoke to me and said. ‘The reason you don’t know, is that it is not yet ready.’

Psalm 37:7 says ‘Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him’.

This week God has been speaking to me about waiting. Bill Johnson in his book ‘Face to Face with God’ talks about the Hebrew word for rest in that verse. As well as meaning ‘to be still’ it can also be interpreted as ‘to take a leisure walk’. I love that analogy. How often am I so concerned about hearing from God, and trying to work out the next step, that I miss just walking leisurely with Him? How often do I put the task and the wonder of trying to hear the mysteries of what He is saying above the pure delight of just enjoying His presence?

Did you know that nowhere in the Bible does it tell us that it is our responsibility to seek out the direction for our own lives? Our responsibility is to seek relationship with Him, and allow Him to guide us.

So next time I have a doubt, I am going to be realize that I don’t need to strive to find the answer. Often doubt means WAIT. Instead, I am going to take a leisure walk with the Lord.

And the next step for me after University? Well, shortly after being told to wait, I discovered I was pregnant with my first child. That certainly kept my hands full that year!

Are you unclear about the next step in your life at the moment? Where do you need to stop striving to find the answer and instead take a walk with the Lord?