Stillness

Sing: Everlasting God by Lincoln Brewster

Pray:
Come Holy Spirit, fill me with Your fire so that I can be more like You; help me, I trust You. Father open my eyes so that I may see clearly, open my ears so that I may hear soundly, open my mind so that I may understand fully, open my heart so that I may love more, open my hands so that I may give generously and receive humbly, in Jesus‘ name, Amen.

Read: 2 Chronicles 12:1-16:14

Behold, God is with us at our head, and His priests with their battle trumpets to sound the call to battle against you. O sons of Israel, do not fight against the LORD, the God of your fathers, for you cannot succeed. 2 Chronicles 13:12

When the alarm rang this morning there was a moment of hesitation in my body, “is it really time to get up already?“ Sigh… But then my spirit reminded my body of why the alarm was ringing at five am, “Body, we get to spent time with the LORD now“. “Oh right!“ my body shouted and was up in a flash and headed for the coffee pot for the hot water and tea bags! As the steam rose from my fresh cup of Cinnamon Apple tea and I pulled the daisy blanket over my knees I clutched my Bible to my chest with all my might as if it were the Word of God Himself just for me… Oh wait, it IS!

His word and its application on my life never ceases to amaze me. Yet I am still surprised by how He seems to make all things work together for my good. This weekend was so wonderful with our family and our church. But last night as I sat down on my bed with the journal that my husband and I write to each other in every night the one thing that kept coming back to me over and over again was the friendship that we share, just like the journal. You know, there are some days when you go out and you do things just as a couple. We like to go to amusement parks and ride roller coasters together. For our anniversary last year we enlisted the grandparents to care for our children and the two of us ran away to Cedar Point together for some alone time. Those times are so critical in a marriage, they put a nice big fat log on the fires of love to fuel them and keep them burning for a long time. But then there are the everyday moments in marriage that are so much more crucial to keeping the fire alive. They‘re the kindling kind of moments, if you will, where you just spend time together as a family. It‘s not a romantic time, or a steamy love scene, it‘s those kinds of moments where you‘re not necessarily doing anything special, but you‘re doing it together and that‘s what is really important. Yesterday wasn‘t any big grand party or spectacle for the celebration of Christ‘s resurrection, we got up and did an Easter scavenger hunt to find our goodies. Then we almost begrudgingly stopped playing with our new things long enough to get dressed and ready for church, we ended up being late as always, it‘s almost a Knochel tradition at this point! Then after church was over we made our customary hugs and well wishes for the holiday before we hopped back into the car to head for Grandma‘s house ninety minutes north for lunch and an Easter egg hunt with cousins. At the end of the day we got back in the car and drove home full of Easter ham, deviled eggs and more sugar than any one person should eat in one day. See, like I said, nothing super spectacular or terribly exciting, and yet it was!

You see as much as I love writing and having my nose buried into a computer screen all day, time with my family is precious. It always has been, but now that I don‘t get as much of it as I used to, it‘s even more precious. Yesterday I got to spend three hours sitting elbow to elbow with my husband in our car, talking about the things going on in our life part of the time, and the other part of the time just simply being still with one another. In the last few weeks I have really come to, not just learn about the power of stillness, but I have seen the power of stillness in my life. And you know what I‘ve seen; God is in the stillnesses of our life. He‘s there in those moments where we aren‘t saying or doing anything and we‘re just still and listening to His small yet power-filled voice. There is so much power in just being still. I am overwhelmed with it at times. On the trip home from Grandma‘s house, we didn‘t really talk much; we kept to ourselves and our own activities we had brought along. The kids colored, I read Little Women on my Kindle and Sean was driving. Yet it was there in that stillness where none of us were trying to get the other‘s attention, no one was fighting (thank God), and no one was voicing their concerns of “what are we going to do about this situation“ that God came and spoke with each of us in His own way. During that time, the others might have been seeking His wisdom, but I know that I wasn‘t. I was simply trying to enjoy my resting time and the book that God had been pointing me to for the last week. And as much as we felt like a family as we were doing things with one another all day long, it was in that time of stillness that I felt the most like we were a family. Like we were all so secure in our place as a family that there was no need for words to be spoken between us, just love filtering in through the car like the sunlight through the windshield.

Psalm 131 talks about being like a weaned child in its mothers arms.

The Holy Spirit has whispered this verse to me often times when I‘m struggling with something. I carry it around like a student carrying a back pack filled to bursting-seams with heavy books, seemingly oblivious to the weight it is adding until I finally go to put it down and realize just how heavy the burden truly was.

God is our Father, and like a weaned child in its mothers arms we need to climb into His lap and unburden ourselves on Him. We need to cast our anxieties on Him because He cares for us. There is no need for us to stay up all night worrying when He‘s already going to be up all night taking care of whatever it is that is worrying us. So why not allow Him to do what He does best, take care of our burdens and comfort us in His arms allowing us the freedom to be content where we are.

In Hebrews 1:3 it tells us that after Jesus provided purification for sins He sat down at the right hand of God. Tell me, if there is still work to be done, do you sit down? If dinner is completely finished and there‘s nothing left to do, do you keep cooking? No! You sit back and you enjoy your finished work! When I am finished writing (granted I do write sitting down), I don‘t keep writing, I stop. Then I go back to the top and read to enjoy the work that God has used me to create. Whatever you‘re going through today, happy, sad, painful, joyful, God is working. He is not dead, His arm is not too short to save or His ear too dull to hear, He is alive and active and working in your life right now! He is working so that you don‘t have to be. Too many cooks in the kitchen equal a mess, so get out of the kitchen! Let the master chef do what He does best and get out of His way. When you are still you are remembering that HE is God, that He knows what He‘s doing and will do what is best for everyone involved.