Soul Rest 9/20/26
“The LORD your God is commanding you this day to follow these statutes and ordinances. Follow them carefully with all your heart and all your soul. Today you have affirmed that the LORD is your God and that you will walk in his ways, keep his statutes, commands, and ordinances, and obey him.” Deuteronomy 26:16-17
God's promised to lead the Israelites into the promise land. Not just knowing about it but knowing it in a way that would move them to respond with a heart obedience. God has always been about reaching our hearts and knowing him in a way of following him alone. God was teaching them that honoring him wasn't just about religious or ceremonial observance but about leading them in ways that changed their hearts to know him. God is still about that today.
Learning to depend on God alone will be a life long process. I was meant to live in wholeness, delight, and utter goodness and some of those days I will choose the opposite. It can come as me wanting to feel something and following my thinking to end up again in an uneasiness in my heart once again and restlessness in my spirit.
I am like the Israelites and forgetful to getting off course to find myself wandering getting a nudge within my spirit for God to reveal to me once again I am relying on my thinking. Been there?
So how I continue to learn to rely upon something that can't be seen?
Sometimes I feel the quiet of God's presence within me. I am learning what can't be felt at times is remembering that God is with me. Weariness can settle in and fatigue will wear me down but I am learning that is an opportunity to sit in the quiet and remember. I will speak to Jesus like he is right beside me telling him all my thoughts and resting in him knowing. His Word reminds me He knows my every thought before I speak it.
The Israelites were learning to depend on God as He led them through the wilderness into the promised land. On the way they, like us, experienced trials, struggles, problems, and God continued to remind them, “I will walk with you” like He does with us. In the quiet is the endurance He is building in me when my feeling won't stop. The choice is mine to remember God's faithfulness or allow those thoughts to consume me.
What if I came to Jesus instead of trusting my feelings to direct me?
Where would that lead me?
It is Special
We recently took a trip to Maui for vacation. On day one my husband decided to go explore the roads of the beautiful island. Knowing we would only be there for a week we wanted to be able to see all parts of the island and having a rental car gave us that opportunity. Taking drives is something we have always done as a couple and the back roads growing up in Kentucky was something we were accustomed to. Even ones without guard rails were something we used to handle with ease when we lived there but nothing could have prepared us for the road we took that first day in Maui. This was a road like I have never been on but the views couldn’t be beat but little did we know this road was the most dangerous road known to the locals.
This one lane road without guard rails came with cliffs and curves you couldn’t see around at times. I remember thinking, this can’t be a normal road and silently praying to God. A fourteen mile road should never have an hour and half EST but that didn’t stop my husband from exploring it. It was at the middle of that long drive we came to a curve where we encountered another driver as we shared the one lane. Both cars couldn't fit around the curve so we had to back up to figure out the situation one of us had to yield. We were on the side of the cliff as the other driver said, “Go forward you have five more inches.” So my husband did as the stranger directed him and he was able to go by so we could get around the curve safely. I looked in his car and his wife had a look of what I was feeling intense anxiety and fear of what was coming next and the stranger said, “I know. It's special.”
Those words, “It’s special” didn’t escape my mind that day. Maui was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen and knowing that God created all that I couldn’t help but remember that as special as that was, his greatest creation was us. The relational freedom to live in a way of knowing the good road to travel and blessings as we travel is knowing the life giving Spirit inside us that can lead us.
"For we eagerly await through the Spirit, by faith, the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision accomplishes anything; what matters is faith working through love." Galatians 5:5-6
Paul was reminding them that freedom didn’t come on their own and wasn't something they could earn but a abiding trust in Jesus and what he did for them. Like me they had to learn to trust walking in the spirit was a continuous lifestyle waiting and anticipating what was to come. Traveling with Jesus is remembering the roads I travel will have dangerous curves and blind spots but that the blessing will come when I remember the view is worth it all. Spiritual eyes to see things in a way that reveals the bigger picture is trusting in what cannot be seen. Trusting like my husband did with that stranger, moving forward and keeping in step with the Holy Spirit and yielding and moving forward a little at a time. I can trust guidance will come when I ask, “Father, show me where I am trusting is something other than what you have for me. Give me eyes to see joy and gladness amid the chaos and confusion.” Keep me focused on you King Jesus.
So where could you yield to things you see in order for the view to become more focused?
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Independent Spirit
For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” 1 Corinthians 15:3a
Paul said a lot he had a lot of words but these words were the very important. They are words that hold me knowing that I get to be made whole with a community of believers formed into Jesus more and more. My independent spirit apart from this truth can do nothing. I cannot produce righteousness on my own and the good news of the gospel is I am made completely perfect because of the sacrifice Jesus made for me.
I was that independent kid. No one was going to tell me what to do. I had to get the last word in with my parents. I decided I was fine not following God. Why should I obey something that just tied me down? At least in my mind that was my understanding for many years. I had to discover God's love for me on my own but little did I know that would become the very relationship that brought me life. The Scriptures were always there in fact I was that kid that excelled at memorization of Bible verses but I didn’t believe in my heart that I could know Jesus. No fault but my own. I can look back and see all those times God continued to pursue me and let me know he had better for me but until I surrendered none of that was going to happen. The gospel had to work its way into the independent spirit that was in me. That still holds true today even more so.
God doesn’t need my mind, he needs my heart. Independence is ingrained in me. It has been a very slow process of unlearning my ways to embrace the life I was meant to live in Christ. I was with my small group the other day sharing something that seemed God has been teaching me over and over. Thinking I was good in an area to then encounter, I was back there getting that lesson again. This time realizing, “Oh yeah I am doing things my own way instead of inviting the Holy Spirit to guide me.” Father, forgive me and move me back forward the way you desire..
Do you think this surprised God? His word says that He knows our thoughts before they are spoken. So now I just tell God what is going on in my mind and ask that he remind me of his truth. Meditating on God’s truth reminds my heart and mind to be dependent on God alone.
What if you did that knowing that the past presence and future of the gospel held you?
Gospel Myself
“I say then, walk by the Spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other so that you don’t do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” Galatians 5:16-18
The law was fulfilled through the inner influence of the Holy Spirit no longer living on my own but being led by the Spirit. That will be a daily battle. The competition between my new self being created in Christ and my old self. Releasing my independent spirit with the unteachable attitude to embrace following Jesus. I have an opportunity to grow in my relationship with Jesus as I battle but the choice is mine. It is determined by who’s voice I follow.
I am learning as I grow that what I speak about myself and to myself will determine how I see myself. Allowing God''s voice to become louder can determine who I live my life in obedience to myself or obedience to the Holy Spirit within me.
Early on into my diagnosis of MS I noticed the thoughts would come in waves to make me feel isolated. Some thoughts included, “Don’t say that out loud they will think you are crazy.” The biggest one I remember, the one that would keep me up at night or greet me first thing in the morning was, “You are all alone.” Thankfully I was around people that prayed for me and encouraged me to recognize that even as those thoughts came that what was occurring didn’t have to determine my future. I could trust in God. I also remember telling God that what was happening didn’t make sense one day in my car and then the thought came this time the voice was gentle, “We have only begun.” That voice was truth because now everything I had been learning along the way in my journey of my relationship with God was now going to be revealed in a way of either trusting in myself or believing the Spirit who lived in me would be who I would listen to guide me. The choice was mine to make who I would believe within my mind and heart. Looking back almost five years ago I can see that was the beginning of God starting something within my spirit to show me the battle would continue to be fought and I was getting to know that my Victor would be the one calling all the shots.
The thoughts would still come and they still do today but I would begin to speak over them. I would begin to gospel myself in truth when the thoughts would come. "It feels out of control but I know God you control all things.” My struggle became my normal to know I will struggle but speaking truth over my life would bring me freedom from my mind. Believing I have been set free from my mind creating a wholeness within me to know the mind of Christ is how God has designed me to live but that again is a daily choice for me to make. It is an invisible battle being fought and that is probably the most difficult thing about it. The battle fought between our hearts and minds to invite the Holy Spirit in the battle to remind us we aren’t alone.
So what thoughts are you battling with that you need to re gospel yourself you have been set free? What if you asked the Holy Spirit that question?
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Be My Vision
“I lift my eyes towards the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121:1-2
One of the my favorites parts of Maui was seeing the mountains from the different locations. From our condo they could be seen distant but a short drive around Maui the mountains out the car window they appeared lush that if I could touch them I could feel them the softness. At least that is what I was thinking as we drove around. We noticed depending on the direction we went that where we drove the mountains could be desert or the mountains of a rain forest. One extreme from the island to the next would reveal how the Creator created Maui in a way of seeing how God revealed the difference within creation.
Where does my help come from?
It was at the highest the psalmist’s position reflects that his realization that his help had to come from somewhere else. This psalm is one that I recognize as far back as a child but the truth is embedded so deep within my heart as the reminder. “Angela, don’t look within yourself, remember to look to your Maker.” Because I forget all the time. My pride will fight against that all the time until I recognize humility is something I can embrace.
But we don’t like to ask for help do we? For me that can identify weakness and inability to do things on my own.
I took my walking cane on my trip to Maui. My collapsible device that I have nicknamed “Grace” is now something I will take along with me when I know a lot of walking is involved. Even before that thought of getting a device like that I had to be moved to a place of understanding it would require humility and admitting to myself sometimes I would have to use it. But learning more about how humility can give me a perspective to see things in a way can shift how I see things is the reminder to take “Grace” around places I go. Never knowing how hard the walk will be, how much greater is knowing that grace is available for the asking each time I struggle asking for help?
So what is it for you? Where could you ask the Maker to reveal to allow Grace to meet you?
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