doing it inside out- end, rethink… reorganize…redo…redundant…result…reverse…repent…resolve…rest…resist…real…revolution…rest, begin
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome.
The funny thing about getting older is I find how painfully simple life really is. really.
If I only would have begun at the end, and listened to what my elders were trying to tell me, (particularly my dad) I could have saved so much effort and heartache. We are the ones who make things complicated in the attempts for control.
Are you thinking “Yeah but“ you already have walked off the path.
God encourages us to start at the end. But we resist.
I once had a little 3 year old friend Levi. Levi once told me he would hold his own hand across the street. Along the same train of thought, I run catered events for a living which involves carrying and hauling stuff, loading trucks, unloading trucks, arranging tables and chairs. Getting up early then working into the we hours of the morning. Recently I hurt my back, again, which has caused me to adjust how I do my job. I need to ask for help. When I would rather do it myself. I do it better myself, it’s easier to do it my self, leave me the F alone. Hmm, so this pot knows what the black kettle’s color really is.
Seems I need to depend on others. But my experience has been that others are so undependable. So God must be too….right? Now I need to wait and let someone else pick up the tray of plates, case of beer, box of equipment. This means I must think seriously about how I do my job. I need to depend on others. I don’t receive help well. I don’t rest well, but when I do the results are remarkable. God really does care for me He really does speak to me. It is all going to be OK.
We are created for rest. We resist rest.
Look at Psalm 95…
Psa. 95:1 Come, let’s shout praises to GOD,
raise the roof for the Rock who saved us!
2 Let’s march into his presence singing praises,
lifting the rafters with our hymns!
Psa. 95:3 And why? Because GOD is the best,
High King over all the gods.
4 In one hand he holds deep caves and caverns,
in the other hand grasps the high mountains.
5 He made Ocean—he owns it!
His hands sculpted Earth!
Psa. 95:6 So come, let us worship: bow before him,
on your knees before GOD, who made us!
7 Oh yes, he’s our God,
and we’re the people he pastures, the flock he feeds.
Drop everything and listen, listen as he speaks:
8 “Don’t turn a deaf ear as in the Bitter Uprising,
As on the day of the Wilderness Test,
9 when your ancestors turned and put me to the test.
10 For forty years they watched me at work among them,
as over and over they tried my patience.
And I was provoked—oh, was I provoked!
‘Can’t they keep their minds on God for five minutes?
Do they simply refuse to walk down my road?’
11 Exasperated, I exploded,
‘They’ll never get where they’re headed,
never be able to sit down and rest.’”
This seems to be where we are as His people, we have taken matters into our own hands and sort of muddled things a bit. We try and change our approach to meetings, pastoring, fellowship, communion, baptism. We call it different things change the dynamic slightly. Do a fund raiser. muddling happens. The jig is up.
What will it take for us to GET IT.
faith is resting In Him In Him we live and move and have our being.
I have said this all before in different ways but it still feels like we don’t completely understand what it would mean for us to actually enter His rest.
I have heard it said that the order of things in Genesis 1 had significance. We were created to enter into God’s rest.
Gen. 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
I am going to begin here…
