FINDING REST IN GOD ALONE
Do many opinions seem to be battling it out within your mind? You try to quiet the many voices, so that You can hear the most important One, but try as you may the cacophony continues. Have you learned to speak to your own soul as David did? For David had learned to direct his soul to find rest in God alone.
How did he do it? How had he learned to quiet the voices in his head, so that he could find rest in the voice and presence of the Lord?
A helpful spiritual discipline is to pray yourself empty and then pray yourself full. Here is what we mean. First, pray out every thought that is troubling you to the Lord. As Paul wrote, “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (1 Cor. 10:5). Do you have anxious thoughts? Turn each one of them into prayer (Phil.4:6-7). It takes the same amount of energy to worry as it does to pray. However, the first one hurts and the second one helps. Worry is self-talk. Prayer is God-talk. Pray until you have emptied your mind of every concern. Now you are able to say with the psalmist “let all that I am wait quietly before God.”
Second, having prayed yourself empty, pray yourself full. Take hold of the promises of God. Remember, biblical “hope” is a confident expectation. Hope is like a rope, anchored to the promises of God and to the Lord Himself. Be filled afresh with the Spirit. Pray the psalms back to the Lord. Fill you mouth and your mind with God’s Word and promises. For our hope is in our God!
PRAYER: Dear Father, You have made us and You know us better than we know ourselves. Teach us to wait quietly on You. For we place all of our hope in You. We give You our worry and care this day and we ask You to replace it with Your peace and joy. For You are our peace and You are our joy. Quiet our minds. Speak, “Peace be still,” over the storm in our souls as You did over the Galilean one that struck fear in the Twelve. We give this day and all its concerns to You. Strengthen us to walk in Your Spirit. In Jesus’ name, amen.