Rest Part I

It's been a month exactly since I wrote about rest and how I desparately need to learn how to build it into my life. I was in the middle of the craiest week of the semester as far as assignments go and as I sat in our chapel (which was open for prayer and set aside for students to stop and rest before God)

I prayed "God if there is anything that is keeping me from knowing you more or living my life as you want me to please show me and change me."

It is amazing to me how faithful God is when I honestly and humbly pray for him to show me my weaknesses. I am amazed at how specific he is and how loved and not condemned I feel when he puts his finger on something I need to change. When God speaks to me this way and when I experience his love and holiness in the light of my own weaknesses and failures how else can I respond except by humbly wrestling before God with my problem and seeking restoration through him. I have a deep desire to change that I might serve and know him better.

The area that God specifically put on my heart that day was that I often try to live my life in my own strength and then I come to my end (which doesn't take long) and am exhausted (which happened often last semester). I love my work and my life as a student but don't love feeling tired all the time (emotionally and spiritually as well as physically).

God brought to mind a few conversations in the last few months in which I basically told people "I don't rest." I was just resigned to the fact that I have a crazy busy life and that I don't need to slow down.

CONVICTION!! What did I just say that I don't need rest?

I certainly live my life that way sometimes. It is obvious that I need a whole lot of things in my life. It is obvious that I do not have everything under control. But somehow in my pride I was able to convice myself that I'd ask God for strength when I ran out of my own. Ugh! I hate that that was part of my thinking for so long with out me acknowledging it. How arrogant and how dead wrong. I gladly repent of that and chose to accept my utter inability to serve God and live a godly life outside of His strength.