Rest is important. It is a place of remembering God. It is a place of coming away with Him. It is something that is under attack every day, all day long. As many have said and as we all know, our society is frenetic, crazy busy. People don't have time for relationships, for rest.
And in my house, like the houses of many others, rest is a rare commodity. Somehow I've got myself on to a hamster wheel of activity: planning every moment for myself and my children. When we have an unscheduled moment, chaos ensues - someone is shouting at someone else, someone is using a whining voice, someone is trying to get on someone else's last nerve.
But we can't be structured all the time. We need rest. We need a place of peace. We need to shake off the dust from the day and allow the noise to settle. We don't need the constant laugh track that accompanies just about everything on the pre-teen shows. We need rest.
I'm just not good at it.
My husband used to try to get me to sit down. I would "relax" by making something, cooking or doing some housework. Then halfway through the afternoon, I would start getting tired and by dinner time I was cranky.
Now, watching my children in the same pattern, I need a way to model to them (and to teach them), how to take rest when they need it. BEFORE you get cranky is the time to rest. BEFORE you are completely dried up and tapped out is the time to rest.
God gave me a picture, which may or may not seem new to you. Imagine a cup, a bowl and a hose.
The cup is small, filled and emptied. We often are like cups. Our capacity is small and we pour it all out before filling it again. We are frequently drained.
The bowl can hold more. It holds more than just liquid - it can hold the anointing, the giftings and the words that God gives us. We can pour some of it and hold some back for later. But a bowl filled to the top will overflow and spill. In some ways that is good, in others not.
The hose is the conduit. It is connected to the water source. It can take a nozzle to direct and add power to the water that comes out. If it has anything in it, the water will remove it as it flows through. The hose is a tool for the water, and a way of directing it, but it doesn't contain it or limit it. There is no end to the water in a hose because it is attached to the tap.
Unless we are overflowing, with living water flowing through us, we are dry. A bowl ever slightly empty is still partly empty. God wants us to be full to the brim and overflowing, but he also wants to be flowing through us, cleansing us and flowing to others.
Rest comes in not having to choose when and where to pour out our bowlful, but in allowing it all to flow out of us. It doesn't take away from what we already have. It is just an overflow and extension of who we are.
Okay, so now it's time to put this in practice. Help me Lord!!
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