Reaching for Rest
Have you ever felt like you were in water so deep that the tips of your toes can no longer touch the ground, the waves and swells periodically swallowing your head? The safety of firm ground long past, toes reach for its security in vain. Feeling like you are going to drown any second. You have gone down for the third and fourth time… so many times you have lost count. Sputtering and squeezing your eyes to try to gain focus. Wondering if you are going to come up the next time or if it is the end.
You don’t dare allow yourself even a moment of being still lest you go down for the last time. Stillness feels like a luxury, like a far away dream that beckons; yet there is an all-encompassing sneer with an ever-growing list of to-dos and demands that stands between you and it.
Anxiety rising up inside like a tsunami wave.
You are tired;
tired of swimming,
tired of pushing,
tired of trying,
tired of mentally, physically, and emotionally treading water.
The only hope you have had is to keep going, not giving way to that ever-increasing swell inside, trying to keep your eyes on the horizon.
Trying to not allow the outside chaos in,
You know that your help comes from above,
you know that He says rest, be sill.
You know that He is the one who preserves your soul.
The truth lay before you like yet another to-do list, you know the truth, but can you risk it?
Desperate to experience that rest, finally in faith, you lay back, trusting, believing that you can rest and float. Trusting in his keeping power, trusting in who He is.
Yes, lay back in His arms, His strong arm, His everlasting arms.
Then wonder of wonders as you lean back you feel His timeless embrace and realize that He is outside of time and space. The rush of his presence like a long warm embrace.
His arms are everlasting arms. He can hold you through any storm because not only is He above the storm, above the chaos, above the waves and the clouds that obscure the light. He is the breath of Heaven, He can fill your tired lungs and you can release all the anxiety and stress and be filled again and again with His heavenly breath, feel the refreshing fill your soul.
Not only that, But He is the ruler, creator, and lover of your soul and He is holding you in his everlasting arms. He can hold you from the beginning to the end.
When we feel breathless from trying to stay afloat, striving to say ahead, or rather frantically paddling to keep up. It is our job and privilege to lay back and still our soul long enough to feel His embrace, experience His breath of life.
He wants us to release to him all the things that we are trying to hold while we are trying to stay afloat.
It is a matter of trusting in Him, leaning on His ever-capable arms, the vast expanse of His mighty hand.
He holds the entire world in His arms, yet He has room enough to embrace you lovingly without letting you feel as though you are falling off the edge. His reach is endless, His spans’ longer than the universe, His love wider than the widest ocean.
Hear Him say rest child, lay your head on my chest and feel the beat of my heart for you, I love you. I have got you; I have got this!
