For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”…Isaiah 30:15
I give you permission to REST. It’s a wonderful gift the Lord’s been repeating to me over and over and I want to pass it on to you. Isn’t it amazing how we moms hit the ground running every morning! There is so much to get done and depending on your temperament, some attack the list harder than others. Does it really take all that, though?
I’ve been meditating on this verse the past couple of days and I realize I push myself way too hard, out of habit. God wants me to slow it down until my “flesh” feels uncomfortable; till I feel like I’m not doing anything. He wants my mind less consumed with planning and figuring and more consumed with every Word about His Son. So I started with this verse; whispering it to myself (meditating is saying it, not just thinking about it) while digesting the meaning of each word. He’s shared so much with me in such a short time!
First of all, this verse is the Lord’s message to me. The prophet Isaiah is simply relaying it. This is His instruction on how to receive the rest He has for me. As I return my thoughts to Jesus and the magnitude of what He did for me on the cross, I can rest in the fact that He really took care of all of it. It really is finished: the punishment I deserved, the curses I inherited, sickness, lack, shame, defeat and the list goes on! I don’t have to verify that He followed through (like I often have to do with my husband and children). Jesus has taken care of every detail; not just my destination in heaven, but the everyday concerns of my life as well. He saved me in the fullest sense of the word and now I can lie down, rest and enjoy the fruit of His labor. In the absence of anxiety, my confidence in Him grows and I feel so safe and cared for. I’m finding that people who are secure at the core are strong, not easily moved by circumstances or challenges.
Later, while I meditated on it again God gave me a visual that drove the point home. There’s a shepherd who brings his sheep to graze the hills around my subdivision every spring. The kids and I noticed that every time we pass the flock they’re either eating or lying down. They’ve cleared acres of land in just over a week! So yesterday the Lord whispered to me that those sheep eat grass chosen by their shepherd and then rest right where they’re grazing. While they lie down they regurgitate the food they just ate; chewing and swallowing the same food over and over getting every bit of its nutrients. That is their “work”. Not finding the food, but revisiting the choice food their shepherd gives them until they “milk it for all it’s worth.”
Jesus took care of all the outcomes of things we face on a daily basis. Today, He wants our lives to be as simple as the sheep’s. Feed on the revelation of Him in the Scriptures, memorize it and chew on it all throughout the day until it is easily digestible. The wisdom we get as a result will be the very answers we’d otherwise spend hours trying to figure out! There’s a place for planning, but it’s most effective when it is born out of God-given direction. Let’s take a load off, “sit down” in the Word and let it sit down in us!
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SOUL FOOD (Scripture References)
Romans 10:17, NIV; Colossians 3:16, NIV
Joshua 1:8
Matthew 11:28
© Vanessa A. Harris and The Legacy of Faith, 2012.
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