1. rest

Welcome to my first ever newsletter!

I will be sending these out at the beginning of the working week every Monday fortnight. A short devotional, a story, a quote I'm pondering on, a question for you to consider and a prayer to end... oh and a photograph I've taken for a bit of beauty!

devotional

I start off each day typically in silence with God and this morning, as I entered this throne room, I was in awe of the splendour, scale and magnificence of the place. When I visualise my interactions with God the Father, I always find myself as a little girl and wanting to hop on my Heavenly Father’s lap.

For those of you who know me, I’m a pretty curious person. So after taking in the beauty and scale of this room, my mind started to wander. I wonder what the other rooms look like in heaven? Are there bedrooms for us to sleep in? In John 5:17, Jesus states that his Father is always working, and in Psalm 121:4, it says that he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

Does that mean that God doesn’t rest now? In Genesis 2:2, it states that after creating the world in 6 days, He rested. I don’t think it was because he was tired that he rested, but on that seventh day of rest, he stopped and reflected and took time to enjoy his good, very good creation.

If God doesn’t have a room to rest and sleep, do we? Or are we working in such a way that we don’t need to rest? Working in such a way where we know our limits.

I hear plenty of stories of my friends who find it hard to stop working. I sometimes wonder whether it is because we think we are god. Yes, I know that sounds ridiculous thinking that out loud, but do we? Do we think that the world will stop if we don’t work? That we are so important? That we are in total control of our lives? Yes, I believe the work we do is important and can have a huge impact as we work in partnership with God to bring about redemption in His world. However, I wonder whether we sometimes might overestimate the importance of the work that we do?

story

I remember a co-worker saying once that they were afraid to take a rest and go on holidays. Every time they would take a break, they would get sick. They also realised they would have time to think about what they were trying to avoid. I remember hearing this thinking, yes, perhaps we make ourselves so busy and don’t rest, because we will have to really confront the things inside our lives that we are unhappy about. In one sense, it’s easier to fill our lives and be busy so we don’t have time to reflect, because we will then realise just how much of a mess our lives really are.

Or maybe you can identify with another friend who used to live by herself and always had the TV on as background noise, because she was so scared of silence. Perhaps you could say that she didn’t want to quiet her soul enough to think. To think about how her life was really going.

quote

“The Sabbath is routinely rejected because it is one of our most profound tastes of grace.” ~ Dan Allender, Sabbath ​

question

“Does my current pace of life look like that of someone who actually wants to hear from God”? ~ Ian Simkins​

prayer

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for giving me good work to do. Help me put the work I do into proper perspective. I am sorry for times where I have prioritised the work that you have placed for me to do ahead of everything else.

Thank you that in Psalm 127:2, you give us the gift of sleep and help me put aside work for a time and rest in you. May my identity not be found in the work that I do, but that I am deeply loved by you.

Amen

Have a great week.

Love,

p.s. A HUGE thank you for being my first supporters on this endeavour. I really do appreciate your support and would be keen to hear your thoughts or questions you might have after reading this. If you’ve found this beneficial and know others who would enjoy receiving content like this, could you please help me by forwarding this with your friends?Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.