Life has a rhythm, one that is all it’s own, one that we are born into and in tune with. We are born into the celestial sphere with an innate and intact sense of the divine, and that sense is only dulled by the ravages of time and neglect. When we are not careful we grow out of tune with that rhythm, and our world begins to unravel like a ball of yarn in the custody of a kitten. It does not take long to find ourselves strewn all over the floor in a chaotic melange of color and pain, none of it making much sense.

One of the most neglected rhythms of life is that of rest. We buy into the lie hook line and sinker that to be productive means we must stay in perpetual motion. God did not do that, why should we?

In 2005 after a long and arduous trip through India I found that place of rest. That place of such serenity and peace that the spheres of my mind, my body, and my soul all aligned for those precious few minutes with the celestial call of my creator. I paused, and breathed it all in. I held still, and God drew near. I had to be half a world away, in a culture that I would die in if left to my own to survive, but He found me.

Watching the sun rise over the waters of the ocean, listening to the deafening, yet calming ingress and egress of the water against the shore reminding me that I am but a knat on the back of this great big world. I could depart the earth, then and there, and not even register a complaint from the world around me. However, in that moment, that fragile moment where I felt so small and so useless, God was there. I was not seeking him, but he was jealously seeking me on the sacred eastern shore of India. One of the mysteries of life is how we can go in search of nothing, but come back with everything. God was there with a purpose, the purpose of showing me more of Himself then I had ever seen. In Genesis 1 we see God “…hovering over the waters” just before He worked His new creation into existence. He was again hovering over the waters waiting to work a new creation in me.

Rest is commanded by God, rest is ordained by God, rest is sanctioned by God. Rest is divine. We should not expect to rest and hear God clearly and succinctly all the time. But we should rest knowing that God takes His pleasure in His creation and seeing it take time to listen, to listen to the music of the spheres. 

Henry David Thoreau in his conclusion to Walden makes the following observation:

“If you have built castles in the air,
your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.
Now put the foundations under them.”

If we are to dream and chase those dreams with the appropriate amount of vigor we must first learn to rest, for rest is the foundation of the spiritual world we live in. In order to egress and affect those around us we must first learn in ingress. When we ingress we take in the nutrients essential for life much like breathing. The act of egression comes when we have taken in those nutrients and then and only then can we affect the world around us as God would have us to.

 

 

This post is part of a writing project sponsored by Laity Lodge as part of The High Calling Blogs. You can keep track of other posts this week by going here.