Working From Rest

How are you all doing with your decision to slow down, pace yourself, and remember the reason for the holy season of Christmas? I promised you I would write so that together we could navigate our way around the distractions of life and into the Presence of God. Sounds unrealistic during this normally stressful busy time doesn’t it? And now to make matters worse I have dared to suggest that we work from a place of rest. What in the world does that mean?

Progress

In my last two posts, I suggested that you write down your to do list and scratch off those things that were unnecessary— the sacred cows that are known as the “shoulds and oughts”; those things that we have on our list because we feel like we have to do or we need to do because we have always done them. Some of the things on our should list are sacred because we fear that if we scratch them off we will fall off of our perfection cow. Do you really think I am calling you a cow? Not hardly. What I am telling you is that we all have things that we do for reasons that are not necessarily led by the Holy Spirit. We pray that the Holy Spirit will lead us (after all Jesus told us He had to leave in order to send His Spirit to guide us) and then we proceed with our own agendas. If we really mean it, if we really want the Holy Spirit to lead us in the dance of life, then we need to stop stepping on His feet and dragging him along in the dance that we chose for ourselves. That being said, I am hopeful that you scratched off of your list all of the things that you do not need to do. God never told you to do them. What is up with that? Why do we push ourselves to do things we were never called to do? That will have to be another post for another time. So here we are having scratched off our sacred cows and we now have a fresh list of things to do this Christmas that will bless you, others, and most of all the Lord. I suggested you then pace yourselves to accomplish your list by writing down a schedule on your calendar and offering your calendar to the Lord.

Work From Rest

Here is the best part. When you give yourself grace not to be perfect and not to strive, then you are able to rest. When you are free to rest, then your work will undoubtedly be for God’s glory only. Remember to take each day with the space you have made by crossing off the shoulds and oughts and sit at the feet of Jesus. Talk to Him and listen. He longs to fill you with His words of encouragement. He isn’t interested if you check things off of your list. He is interested in your spending time with Him.

Come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest….