Week
1 Abide and Rest
Day 4
Time
to Turn
The
Lord’s exhortation to follow Him carries the focused urgency of a parent who
commands a child to use caution when crossing a busy street. Obedience enables
us to dodge the enemy’s strategies, but we must walk in the Lord’s way and not
our own.
~~~
I
|
’d been ignoring my gradually increasing weight and
cholesterol levels for about ten years when, in the middle of a restless
night, I suddenly felt afraid. Words
came into my mind with an urgency I recognized as being from the Holy Spirit,
and I reached for the spiral notebook on my bedside table. By the dim light of
my cell phone’s home screen, I scribbled: “I am a walking time bomb set to rob
my family of my active presence in their lives through my inability to control
my food intake.”
As I made my bed the next morning,
I’d all but forgotten my fear when my eyes fell on those words I’d scrawled in
the night. I sank onto the edge of the bed and picked up my pen and notebook.
Beneath the messy scrawl, I wrote in smaller, neater letters, “All my efforts
toward diet and exercise fail, but when I inquire of the Lord the only
directive I receive is, Delight in Me…”
It seemed to me this command to
focus upon loving Jesus was akin to being tied to a railroad track and told to
remove my eyes from the blinding headlight of an onrushing train in order to
admire the surrounding countryside.
I cried out, “Lord! I can’t get
everything sorted out!”
Immediately I heard Him say, “That
is the purpose of the coming fast.”
Fast?
I was surprised because, last I’d heard, the
Lord had called me to rest. A fast sounded like hard work, and I was
unenthusiastic. I had been attracted by the prospective
ease of the word “rest,” but rest apart from the overwhelming humility that
comes from entering into God’s presence is only escapism.
To my relief, my call was not to a
complete fast, but required only that I limit sugar, abstain from bad fats, and
ingest fewer calories than before. This simple plan paved the way for me to
find delight in the Lord, because just as an unruly child is quieted by
discipline, our flesh is silenced when we deny it. In this silence we are able
to see and hear our Lord more clearly. The natural result of perceiving more of
God is that we fall in love with Him again, because He is beautiful. Once we
have silenced the flesh and focus on Jesus, humility brings repentance, and we
find ourselves at rest in His love.
Because of what Christ has done we
are under grace and not under the law, and due to God's mercy we are given
repeated opportunities to obey. The Blood of Christ has purchased cleansing
that is not limited to a one-time offer, but at some point repeated freewill
choices toward sin can cause consequences to unfold, consequences that
obedience will spare us and those we love. Finding delight in the Lord is the
unexpected first step toward obedience.
Pray: Lord, I desire to answer Your
call to take delight in You. Please grant a spirit of repentance and grace to
turn from overfeeding the flesh at the cost of neglecting my heart’s
relationship with You. Lord help me to discipline my unruly flesh for the sake
of Your life in me, that I may enter more fully into the inheritance that is
mine through Christ. In His holy name, amen.
~~~
…
you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and
the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
Acts 14:15
Offer
to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and
perform your vows to the Most High,
and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I
will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.
Psalm 50:14-15
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