Rest and the Spirit

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Have you ever had a time where you keep running into the same Bible verse or theme? In retrospect, this week and especially one day everything seemed to revolve around the idea of rest. One post read, “God lovingly built rest into our lives through ways like sleep each night and a Sabbath each week. Rest isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a gift from His loving heart to ours.” Another read, “It’s OK to rest. It’s even more than OK—it’s essential…” And lest you think this is a devotion about rest, it is really about slowing down enough to hear the Spirit of God in our lives. God speaks to us through the Holy Spirit. I can not say for sure that the Spirit was speaking to me about me needing to rest. But I can be sure that I whizzed by so fast that I did not even consider if it was the Spirit speaking to me. And that’s my bad.

Often our lives are so filled that we have little time for hearing His voice in our lives. Now this can even be a life filled with ‘Good’ busyness. Our prayer lives can be one directional at times in that we are praying to God…without listening for God. Our Creator God has input for our lives like direction and purpose, big and small. Sometimes God speaks to us by sending someone into to our lives to strike us with a 2 x 4 just to get our attention. And sometimes He speaks to us through His Spirit in the stillness of our quiet place. Be listening for both!