The Lord promises us that we can embrace His promises and live freely no matter what our situation. Matthew 11:28-30 is my verse for 2022: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly”(The Message.)
We can lay some ill-fitting trips on ourselves and then we aren’t living in the “unforced rhythms of grace.” For the next couple of weeks, I will highlight a couple. Here’s the first.
Attempting to navigate this troubled world without "keeping company with Him."
Jesus found time to pray because He needed connection with the Father and let’s face it, we need connection with Him!
Mark 1:36-37, “….Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up left the house and went off to a solitary place to pray.” He did that again and again. That was his habit. His way. If we want to be like Him and find those unforced rhythms, we need to follow His example.
The more time we spend with Him in prayer, resting in His peace, opening His Word, the more we get to know His nature and His heart toward us. We find nuggets like this one. In the NIV study Bible, this verse is listed in the Notes under Matthew 11:28:
Psalm 55:22, “Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.” The word sustain in the Hebrew means to feed, guide, understand. Your spouse may not understand you. Your boss certainly doesn’t. Your teenage daughter doesn’t get you evidenced by all the hair flipping and door slamming. But the Lord gets you. What a relief. Sustain also means to nurture, to hold. And in the Greek it’s spelled kuwl. In English it sounds like cool. I think this is pretty cool, don’t you?
My goal is that every morning I stumble to my desk (my deck in warmer weather) and open up Jesus Calling to spend time with the Lover of my soul. It is the most life-giving habit I have ever adopted! During this quality time with God, I can feel Him sustaining me. He feeds, guides, and leads me. And when I am overrun with stress, I crawl up in his lap and He holds me. It doesn’t get any better than this! It’s not just cool. It’s epic!
That’s when I feel myself basking in the unforced rhythms of God’s amazing grace.
Here is another ill-fitting trip that can trip us up:
Feeling overrun by responsibility.
Been there. We have the kids and their studies and now they are half online and half off. And our brains work overtime. Are they getting all their work turned in? What about my work? It’s suffering because I have to make sure their work is done. Is that going to annoy my boss? Better get a move on. Got lunches to make, dinner to thaw. Feed the dog before I leave for work. And did that plumber ever call back? It’s hard to get six of us ready with only one bathroom working. And the beat goes on. Only you’re the one that’s beat!
Perhaps you are in the season of life when you’re ready to retire, but you’re not sure your finances are. So you face the daunting task of contacting everyone from the banker to the doctor to make sure you have what you need. And the responsibilities seem endless.
During the early months of lockdown, at the end of an exhausting week of counseling, trying not to worry about everyone, I found myself overrun. I worried about the people who were circling the drain over a life-threatening disease; the families who were going stir-crazy sheltering in place; the folks who weren’t coming to church for fear they would get Covid; fretting over the folks who did come that they might get the Rona; feeling the grief and pain of helping those who had lost loved ones, and trying to recover myself from the getting it!
As I spent time in quiet prayer, and the Lord spoke to me. Now, I have no difficulty believing in a loving God who interacts and communicates with us. In fact, this is the only God I do believe in. Anyway, that morning sitting on my deck in deep prayer about all that was going on in the world at that time and in my world, I heard Him say, “The responsibility you feel has to be your response to my ability!”
Then I read Jeremiah 32:27, “I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” I exhaled and gave my worries to the Lord who was far more qualified to handle them than me. And I am so grateful.
My goal for 2022 is to live in the “Unforced Rhythms of Grace.” How about you?