Place of Rest

My youngest son holds my hand every time he wants to rest and sleep. He comes and lifts the clothing off from my hand to enable him hold on to the skin of my hand. When he finds it, he’s at peace, holds onto it and finally sleeps. My husband usually jokes about it and says that my hand is his soother and I guess his right because it actually soothes him to sleep and even when he cries, the minute he will get hold of the hand, he’s at peace. His fullness is on his security and emotional well being that mummy dearest will take care of him. This is the place that God wants us to reach with Him. Rest in His presence and know that He’s got us covered no matter what.

We all have scenarios whereby we have tried to work out our own way either because we saw that God was taking a longer time than expected, or when we didn’t believe in Him and doubted that He was able to do just what He promised He would do. To rest basically means to be at peace no matter what the situation you’re in. You may be in such deep waters and turmoil, and you’re wondering has God abandoned me? Why does He seem silent on this issue? Like why? The truth is God doesn’t work under pressure, when He answers, it’s because it was the right time. Matthew 8:23-26 tells us a story of how Jesus calmed a storm. “Then Jesus got into the boat and started across the lake with His disciples. Suddenly, a fierce storm struck the lake, with waves breaking into the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke Him up, shouting, “Lord save us! We’re going to drown!” Jesus responded, “why are you afraid? You have so little faith!” Then He got up and rebuked the wind and waves, and suddenly there was a great calm.” We need to always remember that Jesus never abandons our boats, He’s right there with us, just as He was with His disciples. 

I hurt my back on 18^th February 2023 and it’s been such a rollercoaster of downward spiral. Going from being able to sit, drive, stand, bend to not being able to sit for long, drive myself, bend or stand for long. Life as I knew it changed and frankly speaking I thought to myself that the healing would only take a few weeks and I would be as good as new, but shock on me, 341 days later, I am still on the healing journey. There were days I cried so much that my face was all puffy and my eyes were swollen, and I kept asking Him why me? I kept asking Him why I wasn’t healed, and why everything seemed to go from bad to worse in my own perspective. On one of this many nights as I cried unto Him, He told me to ‘focus on Him and not my pain.’ At that moment, I was like, how do I do that Lord, am in a precarious situation and I honestly don’t know what to do from here. Well, as hard as it was, I listened and I started looking to Him and focusing on Him and this meant going to Him for direction, clarity instead of spending more day’s crying. 

Shock on me, He did shift my focus onto something else. I had been so busy counting losses and giving Him a list of what was not working and how my life was working perfectly in the past, but now I had to shift my focus and work with what I had and that meant I had to look at what I had in my hands. In the midst of a storm, God birthed something new within me – a podcast – Life podcast where I have been able to share what I write on the blog, by doing audio recordings, plus I also do daily devotions on the Bible by reading one chapter a day, I call it “Journey Through The Bible”. It’s been such an incredible journey, not only for myself, but to other people as well. I have received encouraging messages from people saying, they are reading their Bible more and are committed and also how they have being blessed through this podcast. All the Glory belongs to God, He is the one who saw the Podcast, even before I started it and it shows just how God is always working in every situation and sometimes it will take us to shift our focus off the turmoil around us and look at what God may be birthing or changing.

God’s place of rest doesn’t mean that everything around you will be picture perfect no, it just means that even with the storm around you, you will be at peace knowing that God is working all things for your good. Your contentment in on your security and emotional well being that God will take care of you – this is truly our place of rest. Isaiah 26:3-4 “you will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock.”

Robert H. Schuller wrote, ‘tough times don’t last, but tough people do’ and Friedrich Nietzsche a German philosopher wrote, ‘that which does not kill us makes us stronger.’ Reading these two quotes and you realise it’s the story of our lives, we’ve all gone through situations that left us wondering what next and some of these situations took away those whom we loved and cherished and all that was left is a shell of what we used to be. 

The Lord sent Prophet Jeremiah to the potters house and he got to see the potter making something at the wheel, “and the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make,” Jeremiah 18:4. The Potter here being God and we are the clay in His hands when the clay was marred (disfigured/flaw/blemish) then the potter made it into something else that was fitting. The marred situations in our lives will seem tough and painful but when we hold on as God repairs and removes all the impurities from us, we are trusting in Him, because He knows us better than we know ourselves. 2^nd Corinthians 4:8-10 Paul writes, “we are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed – always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.”

I don’t know what situation you’re in right now, but God does and He’s in total control over it. Therefore, come before His presence knowing that you will not drown in that situation, be at peace and trust Him in this process. He knows you better than you know yourself and He sees the end from the beginning and only He knows how it will all end. Well, the choice is yours but your far much better trusting in your creator, than on anyone else. He’s got you no matter what!

God bless!!