Resting

When I wrote the Bible study for the first Smoky Mountain Summer Training Program I was racing against the clock. We arrived at the program to find we didn't have the materials our students needed so my husband asked me to write a Bible study on the book of Genesis that would help grow students in their inductive Bible study skills as they worked through it. To do this I had to do my own study, then write out what I did, and then do the Bible study again to see what it would be like from the students' perspective and then edit it after I did this... I began each chapter one week ahead of the students. The entire last day while editing I kept getting text messages from the team leaders asking if it was completed yet! One day, while everyone else in the program went white water rafting, I stayed back and said, "I am not getting up from this room until this Bible study is done." I worked nonstop on it from 6 in the morning until 3 pm... and then hit a wall. No matter how hard I tried, I was just spinning my wheels. It was like the Lord said, "That's enough. That's all I want you to do today. Let it rest." But I was tired of getting those text messages and I wanted it done! I stayed in that room working on it until 8 that night and made no headway at all. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't progress anymore! And I realized, God had a specific timetable for the writing of this. Apart from Him I could do nothing. One thing I was committed to was honoring the Sabbath. So even though the Bible study was "due" on Monday the Lord laid it on my heart to do no work on it on Sunday. This was so hard. But you know, I started noticing that even though I wasn't working on the Bible study on Sundays, they were key days when the Lord was at work on the study. I'd be hiking with my husband and a new idea or approach would pop into my brain, and when I resumed work in the wee hours of Monday morning it was amazing how things would just come together. Week after week I was reminded of a crock pot. You work diligently to get all the ingredients prepared, chopped and added but there comes a time where you turn that crock pot on and set it aside and while you're doing nothing cooking-wise, something delicious is happening inside that makes it taste a thousand times better than when you were working on it. I learned rest is a vital part of the creative process. Lately I've been thinking how that's true spiritually too. Rest is a vital part of spiritual transformation. Just this morning in my quiet time I read Proverbs 8:34 "Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors." Listening, watching daily and waiting. Waiting is a key part of the process. But I like to do! And as soon as I'm done doing one thing I'm off to do the next thing! But as I chewed on this the Lord brought to mind another cooking analogy... Thirty Minutes. That's how long I need to knead bread to get a beautiful loaf. Lately I've been playing seven of my favorite worship songs so I make a joyful noise while I get an incredible upper body workout. And is it ever a workout. But you know the beauty of the loaf doesn't come from that work - I mean, the hard work of kneading is an important part of the process but if I kneaded it for the three hours it takes to make the loaf it would stay dense and small. The beauty actually happens when I place the loaf aside for an hour... when I let it "rest" it rises! So here I am, about to start our sabbatical, a season of rest. And this morning I sense the Lord saying "Just like the Bible study Deb, you can't always be working, working, working! Sometimes you need to just sit, just rest and be still and let me do my work in you... and when you do, you can rise to much greater heights than if you were working all the time." Rest... does it ever provide opportunity to see how our growth really is a gift of God's grace!