We’ve only been in India for a week and already I feel like I’ve learned so much.
God has really been speaking to my heart about what it means to rest in him. For a while now I’ve felt like I had a pretty good grip on what it means to “rest in Christ.” But what I’m talking about here is not like the Matthew 11:28 rest. This isn’t just relief or a lifting of burdens, this is something deeper. And for me it’s been much harder, much scarier, way more risky.
Ever since I left for training camp, every time I would pray I would just hear God repeating “Be still and rest in me. Sit and know me. Abide in me and love me.” And I found it so strange that he would keep telling me to be with him while I was praying to him. I would think “How could I better sit with you then praying to you?” But still he would say to simply be with him.
Again today he really placed it on my heart to just rest in him, he said “Be still and rest in me. Sit and know me. Abide in me and love me.” And so I told him that I was honestly at a loss on how to just sit and be with him. It doesn’t seem like that hard of a concept but I couldn’t wrap my head around it. It’s harder than it seems. I asked him to teach me how. To teach me his simplicity. And he lead my to Acts 17:28 – “In you I live and move and have my being.” I still didn’t really grasp what he meant exactly but I went into ministry with that on my mind.
It was just another day of ministry at the start. I was playing catch with one of the girls and I could tell she was just getting really bored of it so I asked her what she would like to do instead, giving her many options of fun games and activities. But she rejected all of them. She lead to me a room with a couple immobile girls and for a while we just sat there. I was trying to get her to agree to some sort of activity but again she said no to all of them. After a while she just rested her head on my leg, then another girl simply rested her head on me, and for an hour we just sat there. No words, no activities, just sitting in each others presence. They were completely content on just sitting with me, resting on me, being with me. And in that moment God spoke and said “This is what I want from you.”
For as long as I can remember I’ve always been “doing stuff” for God. Always the head of some sort of ministry, always the one praying first, always the one to serve others. I was a regular Martha. Not that any of that stuff is bad. It’s all good stuff. But what God wants more than me to be doing stuff for him is for me to actually sit and be with him. To be content with the simplicity of his presence. To be satisfied in him.
To be frank, I’m still not completely sure what that looks like. But I know that he will reveal it to me more and more as this trip goes on.
