Stop the Insanity and Rest Awhile

Stop. Stopping isn’t easy.

Halting the raining current of title-waves around us, isn’t natural. Swimming upstream may even seem counterproductive.

An anchored soul that still’s itself in the Foundation of the World, isn’t popular.

We are inundated with quickening flashes of videos and snippets of people’s lives promising us solutions, entertainment or lies.

Yet, it was once said,

“The devil doesn’t have to make us sin, he just has to distract us.”

Have we been distracted lately? Has our minds and hearts been blown downstream by every wind, luring us with dopamine? Hooking us like a fentanyl hit?

We judge.

We all judge as we pass by the tweeker on the street corner.

We see them staring at heaven, mesmerized by some invisible “friend”. All the while, drawn away from reality, and addicted to the next thing they can get through their veins.

Yet, can’t we identify? 

Can’t we be the escape-artists too, longing for something other than truth? Looking for anything to numb the ache? Clear the pain? Stop the insane spinning of the world we are living in?

Is it video chasing? Screen addiction? Netflix binging? Video game playing?

What are our vices?

What has been our preferred method of avoiding the harsh reality that this life is simply, not what it used to be?

And have we recovered? Recovered from the wrecking ball of 2020? The time when vision was supposed to be made clearer, according to “prophets” who make a profit by predicting.

And yet, they got it all wrong.

Instead of seeing clearer; mouths were covered, eyes were blinded. Zombies of scarce existences wandered around, when not being forced into isolation from one another.

Where were the protests? Where are the priests? Who are the true prophets?

In a day when protests happen for animal cruelty, hot coffee spilling at a local Starbucks, low pay, not getting what one thinks they are worth…

How did we hide in our house for months, while caving to fear?

When did we believe that their antidote would somehow heal us?

What happened to the Savior; the one who delivered Paul on Malta when bitten by a snake? The One who had no problem resurrecting Lazarus, dead in a cave?

And yet, we find golden calves to appease ourselves, to trick our minds into thinking, WE are in control?

The summer rains flood my browning grass this morning. I would like to despise it, but instead, it is comforting, calming, settling to my thirsty soul.

It brings nourishment to my bones that long for life like the woman at the well; looking for “the water that never runs dry”. Safe in the face of a Savior that at first she did not recognize.

And how do we move forward? Near.

She crawls upon my lap for morning cuddles. It is our time, before babies wake. Her gentle eyes and warm embrace…

Her body relaxes, safe in my arms.

There is no hesitations. No distractions. She comes, out of love, as a morning ritual.

She approaches because she knows, I will be here. The same well-worn spot on my old leather couch. Waiting to hold her. Ready for her settling on my lap for a morning cuddle.

And I wonder, as we live in a world spinning out of control…

Have we forgotten the art of just resting in His arms?

The beauty of going to and knowing, our good and loving Father, isn’t too busy to come and meet with us, and hear about our day.

Have we found black tunnels, endless wells of worldly things that just don’t satisfy the unfulfilling antidotes we thought we were looking for?

When…

The God of the Universe waits?

Have we plowed forward in faith and courage, carried our bravest faces, tried with all our fury to do more, be more…

When all He wants is our embrace…

A small child, coming with a pure heart, to a parent.

A still mind, accepting whatever weather He has given…

Without trying to play God, and commanding the clouds to part?

Have we fought against God? Kicked against the goads? Made man or systems, laws, or institutes our Lord? Those who do not deliver as the saviors we thought they were. When…

All we have is Him.

Have we run and kept running, into a desert of wanting, only to stand there longing, more than we have ever been?

Oh, that we would know His soul-satisfying, thirst-quenching, heart-consoling love that shakes the foundations of the earth…

And stills the most restless soul.

That we might reach out and grasp onto the hem of his cloak.

He has more power, than all of man’s resources combined.

Oh, that we might know, scrolling never satisfies, people never give us life and empty promises leave us blind.

Jesus alone is life.

I have fallen down the stairs of distraction, too many times. But, I long to rise again.

I ache for the weightlessness that makes even the most chaotic world seem peaceful again.

High above. Far removed. Whole-ly one, with the Messiah that knows our affliction, and yet, welcomes us near him, as broken and needy.

It is a doctrine of “I can’t”.

A gospel that never begs, “Do this…Don’t do that”.

It is a message of love over law, relationship over us controlling our destinies by trying in our own might to make ourselves more perfect.

True righteousness comes through the doorway of surrender. 

It is found in the laying down.

The giving over, whatever it is that comes in the way of relationship with God.

True hope is found in, not expecting or demanding or forcing nature to making our own outcomes…

But in surrendering our will to His. Saying…

This rain that falls is enough for me, Jesus.

Confessing, a little in our hand with gratitude is better than a hand full with discontentment.

Peace.

Peace is our promise with The Only One who counts.

Peace is the rest found in The Great I Am, alone.

Peace is knowing and being One, in communion with a God who is humble.

Laying down the phone. Turning off the entertainment that numbs us into complacency, and saying…

“Not my will, but yours be done!”

And then resting in His arms, despite what life may bring.