Too Much Rest?

This is a vacation week, but not a week full of planned activity.  It is a week of rest.  This rest on purpose thing is work...work to change, when I am not used to resting.

My Heavenly Father offers me the grace of His rest.  I acknowledge.  I accept...but I am not good at it.

The human world looks askance upon the human who is too good at human rest.  Restlessness is a religion.  The first thing that caught my attention, listening to Richard Swenson in a radio interview, on his book Margin. .  He said he always got at least nine hours of sleep each night.

In just that regard, he is a peculiar American.  I think I remember him saying, as well, that he had never paid more than five thousand dollars for a car.  Strange Cat.

So I think when I accept my Father's offer to be better at resting in Him than I am at anything else, I suspect I am going to be peculiar.

But that, after all, is how He describes His People.  So He sees the Rested Church.  Count me in.

Too Good at Resting in The Spirit.  Put it on my tombstone.  Though I will not have one.  That is another story all together.

Astounding

Nobody said it would be like this.  Maybe those who know are going on being astounded by even more astounding love, so they are too busy to say.  Actually, Steve Avant acted like this was his experience of grace, but I did not want to believe him.

Look.  I get a call that historically sent me.  Now, no send.  Just good questions to ask and good actions to take.  Then a soul at rest.  Then knowing...knowing what to do next and when, and all a soul at rest.  Then having acted, among other souls, still a soul at rest and still knowing what to do when, at rest.  Favor and grace at every turn.  Clarity of mind, absence of fear.

This is Kingdom living.  Thank you, Father.  Please keep me astounded.  Please continue to give me opportunities to receive love and give it away.

My boy is asleep over there. I am so glad there is a God who loves us both. I feel so inadequate. I have always felt so, in the face of my needing to be a parent.

At the same time, I also feel so grateful. I have come to know that I am supposed to feel inadequate, in this regard and all others. I can not do it, if it is worth doing. It is just that simple. I need help with anything worth doing. Any help that is available that is not directly from God is at least obliquely from God. All of the help worth getting is from God, for all of the things worth doing.

The only time parenting, living, serving, loving, edifying, analyzing gets hard, impossible, is when I try to do it alone.

The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Whatever part I have in it...if my boy is to bring glory and honor to the great king, I am helpless to do my part alone.

Father, thank you for the help so far. Please, do not remove your hand from me. Your hand will not leave unaddressed the wickedness of my life, and will also never leave me without cover. Thank you. I can rest forever in that one lone truth.

Father. What a thing to say. Perfect Father. Abundant rest has always been available in Your embrace. I accept. I freely receive what You have freely given.

Thank You that you are showing me by your Spirit how to identify and avoid the meaningless trappings. That you illuminate the path home, the path that leads directly into your embrace.

I need you, Daddy. I need you to rock me, and tell me the truth. I have been believing lies about you and me, both. Forgive me.

And thank you for Hartsville Community Fellowship. Restore each one's awe tonight.

Doors

I love the doors. A knock comes. A phone rings. Someone writes a note. Someone stops by. The key is the angle of repose. The key is the rested posture. The seat in the embrace of my Father passes through, effortlessly through every holy doorway.

So the key thing to work on, apply love to, is the leaning, the resting, the trusting of God. I will cling to my King. I can only go wrong by doing it myself.

Father, hold me very tight. I trust that if I will refrain from struggling to escape, nothing can take me from your embrace and I will walk in the direction of your kingdom and glory and power. All that is right is you. I hear. I will stay near and keep your scent in my nose.

Quiet

Sunday morning. Boy sleeping nearby. He was awake to turn over a few minutes ago, but quite undecided about his plans for arising.

It is even harder for me to remember how I did fourteen, since I got a late start with this, my one child. So I err on the side of liberty. We really do not have anything we have to do today other than carry him back to his mom. If he sleeps, we miss minutes available for historic dad/dude conversations that are earth shaking and earth shaping. But they are not all like that anyway.

I guess the issue this morning is boy poverty. Since my access time with him is limited...
Well, dog. My access time with him is not limited by familial circumstances alone. I am really still fussing about perfect parenting.

Ok, Father. One more time. I trust you with my son. Here he is. My best has been good, but what you want to do with, in and through him is beyond me. I dare say it is beyond my comprehension. And I am convinced that I am well able to get in your way.
Father, I really want you to be glorified, and that my life would not hinder that in any way or amount. I stand in awe of your mercy. I want to be still, quiet enough to be able to watch what you do with my boy. In the meantime, I need your help to know when I am willfully in the way.

I guess if I would just get back to my place on your lap and rest, I would be properly positioned for this to work out best.

Listening

It is turning into a season of listening. There is grace for it. Starting tomorrow I have to stop heading off to the next destination, realizing that when I am listening, I am on station until the listening is over. I am not going to judge the speaker, the content or the listener, the venue or the crowd. Just the waves of grace. Is this too selfish...to be about the listening, but to be about the grace to listen?

Father, I see a bit of what is up. I really want to listen, but more I want your supernatural ability to love with my ears. I want the ease of coming to rest in the assignment, free from the need to contribute, judge or coach. Free to feel you very near as you help me listen.

Pre Sneeze

Maybe my sights are set too low. I am mightily pre-sneeze. You know. That terrible place where the sneeze is all loaded, but the release does not come.

I am anticipating. It hurts, it is so acute. There is the most astounding change coming, just on the other side of the sneeze, the release. I am aching with expectation. I think I am being goaded to believe that it is a breakthrough in my life, a stepping off into a new fulfillment of my human potential. Then I realize that it is the ache, the universal ache for the kingdom of God, for the dominion that is ours in Christ. This aching place is my place, the place from which I pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done in the earth as it is in Heaven."

I can see that in the meantime, staying faithful to my calling is changing my circumstances in the earth. God help me to resist settling for the human kingdom.

God Daddy, it is good to ache for your embrace, for the advancement of your holiness into this place. Thank you for the aching fire.

Why?

Coming here is the best thing there is. How to introduce others goes back to love. So I will rest here, soaking in love. When I leave, every experience of me will be enhanced by the love that saturates me. So I rest here in love, in the arms of love, in the river of love, hearing the voice of love, soaking and saturating with love. Clinging to love for dear life. Being rewired by love. Having my soul restored by love...and coming away as a carrier, a vector of the infatuation infection.

I sit at rest here in love. The oil of joy facilitates going over under and around obstacles, taking love in where it is needed. To cause someone to say, "What is that?"

Father, teach me to love by making loving my newly reset default response. For every stimulus, the response is love. Automatic and not needing contemplation. To love where love is needed. To love the fatherless. Hold me. I need you so I can bring you the glory.

Rest

What a treat to have a day of rest. Not about work to do, but to say no to anxiety. To say no to poverty. To say no to fear. To say no to picking up old baggage. To say no to striving for heaven. To say no to lovelessness. To say no to shame.

Thank you Father for wanting me. And thank you for wanting everyone else home enough to send your only begotten son to show us. Have mercy on the hard of heart. Bring us back to the moment of awe. To the moment we knew there was more.

In the meantime, enjoy the ride

Since I really don't know anything about surfing on a board, and though I did a fair bit of east coast kayak surfing, I probably have a very simple perspective on the thing. But of course that never keeps me or anyone else from opining.

Sit on the beach and criticize.
Go out in the surf and scream and beat on the waves.
Paddle out, watch, turnaround, paddle, ride, wipe out, survive, learn, paddle out, repeat.

One choice produces fun. One choice inspires. One choice produces awe moments over and over and over and over...

Someone said that 50 percent of success is showing up. Maybe.
100% of success is going back out and standing up again.

Daddy, You make it so good to be in Your family. Thank you. It is so good to be home. Hold me, please.

Quitting

Tonight this journal goes private. I do not know if it will ever go public again. Now the blogger account simply provides a place in the cloud to store the writing.

I expect this change to change the writing. No matter how hard or not I tried, I was always writing for my potential readers, who would then validate my effort by commenting and telling others about the writing. Approval addiction is a bitch.

Daddy, I need your approval and I have it. I know that you are and have ever been there for me. I have been and will be finding my rest in You. See, even the capitalization has been for them. I know that you will love me if I do not capitalize every reference to you.

It hurts to make mistakes with my boy. It hurts that he does not trust me. And all the while, all I want him to do is trust you. I am so honored that he called for prayer. I think maybe he is seeing my walk with you. I hope so. It is very good. Thank you for telling and showing me how you love me, and teaching me how to love.

Wow. Key words are now for me, not them.

For Show

Saw a show place tonight. We went to the mall on a Saturday night, and observed that it must be just the time and place to go and see and be seen. Seems like the average age was about 17. Almost a costume parade.

It is a safe place, civil, under law, under roof, under climate control technology. It must be a place where parents think they can drop their kids off and they will be okay. Mostly packs of similars.

It is impossible to rise above the pack. The only way up is out and up. Leave your tribe for another. Leaving the tribe is death, though. The only thing that makes it work is if the new tribe is that much better. Better yet, if the new tribe makes you forget the other one, or at least that the other one ever had anything to offer.

Tribe trading. All we are saying is that we have that kind of tribe.

Father, I want to be in that kind of tribe. Help me walk the way members of your tribe walk. Help me smell like you. Help me sound like you. Help me manifest your rest and peace.

Control

If only it was possible to control the circumstances. If only it was possible to control the future. If only it was possible to control the fear. If only it was possible to control the pain. If only it was possible to still the voices.

But it is not possible and it is not going to be possible.

If only it was possible to release the circumstances, the future, the fear, the pain, the voices.

It is possible. Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden. EVERYTHING can be laid down.

I am around a lot of scared people. Father help me to shine with the light of your liberty. Help me show them that they can be free of that body of death.

Veneer. Show the veneer for what it is.

State of the Union

The Union is Wonderful. The Union is Strong. The Union is unshakeable. The Union is full of Peace. The Union can weather any storm. The Union is the very reason for any real Hope.

The Union of the Bridegroom and His Bride is a done deal. The Price has been paid. The Union of Christ and His Church is in place.

I talked with the Bride today. She is at rest in the arms of Her Beloved. She is not worried or concerned. She is not distracted from her Holy Husband, by anything happening around Her. The Bride of Christ is very grateful.

I talked with the Bridegroom today. He can not keep his eyes off of Her. He is delighted with His Bride. He loves to here her voice in the morning when she speaks his Name and pauses to listen for His reply. He is delighted with the way she is willing to sit in His peace and quiet to hear him, and at the same time wants so much to be up in the middle of the music dancing for Him.

The Union is Good. When I see the Bride resting Her head on the breast of her Beloved, with no other need and no desire to go anywhere, the Union is good. When I see that and know that the Lamb has received the reward of His sufferings, the Union is Good. Very Good.

Father, thank You for The Union.

Bop

Gonna try something different tonight. Listening to Joe Pass radio on Pandora. Gonna see what I can write while bopping.

Can't do it.

There is real rest in the silence. The silence does not compel Christ to fill the void. The persistent silence is plenty and more than enough. The silence does not compel me to fill the void or to find a social setting so there is people noise and people interaction. Such rest, to test and know that I have no urge, no need to fill the silence of God. It is an invitation to rest and seek the end of it.

Father, thank You for healing the noise in my head.

PrayerLog, PraLog, Prog

There are millions of people with blogs. Of them, there are hundreds of blogs that have significant numbers of readers who keep coming back. Those blogs are an influential force in society that did not even exist a short time ago.

I keep looking at the comments and stats. I really want people to discover this blog. I want referral to take it to where lots of people read it and come back regularly because it makes a difference. Maybe that is the fruit, from yesterday's post.

So the fruit will come, but it does not need tending.

That is the answer, then. Anchor and Adoration. The pursuit of Christ and the constant guidance of Christ set the entire journey. Walking in utter darkness if necessary, but walking in pursuit of Christian intimacy, with unhesitating guidance guaranteed for each step. And the journey stays on course, and the journey maintains headway.

Is knowing that the journey is on course and maintaining headway enough? Yup. On faith. Time now to go in the experience. Hold my hand, Daddy.

Good Morning

I delight in You, my God and King. All that I am and have is from you and directed unto you in praise, honor and glory. I am entirely adrift and lost without you. But I am not without you. You have placed me in Your presence, the intimate center of Your delightful Love. In Your presence is fullness of joy. Here with You, Christ Jesus, I find my purpose and the fulfillment of it. There is great sufficiency in You and I am satisfied and at rest in Your embrace. Thank You for the Blood poured out for the redemption of this glorious Body. Thank You for Your abiding Spiritual weight in our lives. Teach us some more today, revealing your Love in and through us. Convict us and admonish us for being Love misers.

Faith in Christ

Clinging to nothing else is not enough. That just means adrift.

Clinging, leaning all on Christ is enough and all. The Word, the message of good news is that there is a place to lean, it is a place worthy of your trust, and it is the only place to lean on that matters. So that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

What is the purpose of having eternal life? For the healing of the nations. For the manifestation of the Kingdom of God.

Bring the Kingdom of God into your places, and see life, love, flow into Kingdomless corners and hearts. Having eternal life, bear eternal life into the waste places. Only Kingdom people can bring the Kingdom. Only vessels of perfect love can make it available for the removal of fear.

Plenty of nice religions out there for those who need one. Only one place to trust, rest, heal, hope. And then walk out, carrying water to the thirsty.

Daddy, thank you for Your Word of Truth.

Knowing

Certainty. Knowing. Now I understand why people do not get it when we say we are in love with Jesus.

They have been in love. They have been lost in that brainless euphoria and still did not have certainty. Knowing was absent. Especially if they had been in love before. They know it is a drug that wears off. Great drug, though. Great drug. But just a drug.

I am not in love with Jesus. It is a poor, inaccurate way of expressing this Christian faith. Better, much better to say, that I am home in Christ. Every answer is in Him. Everything missing is found in this Life. Everything broken is restored in Christ. Everything that needs to be known to make me fully alive and free is right here and will never change. I know.

Father, You have done it. And we thank you. What a place to rest and heal.