I've been telling my friend, who is an amazing pianist, that in the moments when the world and its desires are pressing in she must go to the piano. Go to the piano, I'll tell her time and time again. Even if she isn't around a piano. I tell her go to the piano in your heart, in your head... go to the piano.
I have watched in seasons how unmercifully I have pushed myself through a day, a series of days, a season, whatever time frame. I have watched as I didn't take the time to reconnect to creativity nor to Creator.
Emerging from those seasons is never pretty.
These days when the luxury of time is not in my corner, when the pressing in of engagements and reality would have me busier than a hamster upon its wheel, I am ever grateful for the lessons of sabbath, selah, and rest.
What has saved my back side in this time is having learned and having laid a hold of the reality of in repentance and rest is my salvation.
I am utterly saved by repentance and rest, I truly cultivate the stance of He is God and I am not. When faith and security in Christ propel me towards rest, I find a strength that would not exist but living within the confines of His heart and His desire.
There are moments when that pause is just that, the briefest of moments to recalibrate and refocus, to breath in and set perspective rightly upon Him. There are moments where I place all else at arms length for even 15-20 minutes, and shelter myself within the refuge of His strong tower.
I was asked recently how I cultivate the relationship I have with God. The foundation of it all is when very early in my walk I heard a man share how he placed a sticker on his watch that said, "Think God." Every time he had to check for the time he would see the sticker. Now decades since hearing those words, it is a part of me as if it is the breath I take.
I am over the belief that something wrong with me is what causes me to fling myself towards God moment to moment, I shelter myself under His shadow because that is what the word of God says is where I am placed. I abide there because of the fruit that is declared within scripture for having done so.
How do I cultivate the relationship I have with God? I take the time. There truly isn't anything more or less than that that really works. Oh you know those fad diets and expressions of health, do this and that and you will lose all the weight needed. But when I wanted to lose weight and did lose over 85 lbs, I stopped eating the wrong foods and exercised. I wanted to know God. I want to know God. PERIOD! If that is all I spend my life upon then I have lived a great life! There is no short cut to getting to know someone. Not truly, not intimately, not fully... it is in spending the time with that One.. In making getting to know that One the highest priority.
He is my best thought. He is my best time spent. He is where it is at. All the time. He is the place I go when I have the best news to share and He is the place I go when I need to weep. He is my all in all. I am convinced that that which He says is true. I am convinced of His power and His dignity. I am most thoroughly convinced of His grace and of His mercy. He is my resting place and He is the One who watches over my steps and sets His angels charge over me wherever I may go. He is always for me. He is always leading me. He is always cherishing me. He is always aware of me. He is always championing me. He is always singing over me. He is that He is that He is and He is my God.
So I come to the place where I am the girl who knows her God and displays strength and takes action. And I delight in that... For in that place I am most intrinsically the me that I was always made to be... In pausing, in finding that selah moment, in embracing rest and repentance and sabbath whether for five minutes or five hours, I reorient myself, my life, my very being to the One who holds my heart and declares my value and my worth. Then I step back more fully into life and living, being flung forward rightly focused and embraced.
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