The Pause that Refreshes

Okay. I’m really not going to make a habit of this but this is detour number two. I can’t help it. I planned to continue with Luke today (1:76) but am still experiencing writer’s block from Friday. So I decided to just warm up with a read in my own personal time in psalms. Only today’s psalm was the big one. Psalm 23. This did not make me happy. 

As I approached perhaps the most well-known, oft-quoted, uber-famous passage in all of scripture--you know, the psalm of David many of us can recite from the time of our childhood--I was Skeptical (sister-twin to its hormonally-charged sibling, Cynicism). Not a good place to be. So I prayed, “Father, please help me to see something in this you want me to see--” and began to read it out loud. Once. (Really, what I’m I going to get out of something so familiar?!) Then twice. 

And suddenly a phrase struck me. “He refreshes my soul”. 

Then another. “He makes me lie down”. 

And more. “He leads...”; “He guides...”; “You prepare a table...”; “You annoint...”.

This wasn't sounding right. Where was my part in all of this? So often my focus is on what God wants me to do. What He expects from me. How I am supposed to serve Him, serve others and do and give and offer and even be. And yes, those are really, really good things (especially if I could pull them off!). But this song isn’t about what I do. David’s song is celebrating what God does for him. And for me. But how many times do I not get that because I’m too busy doing and being about something else? 

God cares about my needs, my fears, my gotta-go, gotta-do, gotta-run mentality. He cares about my soul’s condition. And He knows I need rest. I don’t know how to refresh my soul. He does. So He invites me to lie down. He leads me to a quiet, peaceful place. There, in those moments, He guides me in my life decisions. He prepares a table for me, abundant with things He knows I need. He anoints me--choosing me even as I am--to be His very own. And He assures me (despite the many voices that tell me otherwise) that His goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life.

Our puritan brothers and their work ethic were wonderful. We are indebted to them in so many ways--not just for the annual cooking frenzy that is our beloved Thanksgiving with its deep-fried turkeys and fourteen kinds of pie--but in our lifestyle as well. Our never-ending gotta do, gotta run, gotta achieve kind of thinking has given us a collective standard of living unlike any in all of human history (and hypertension to go with it but that’s another story). 

But God calls us to stop and be refreshed. To stop. To pause. Only when we are quiet and still can he lead us and guide us toward the life He wants for us. And in so doing, we are able to hear in those times of quiet, away from all the noise of a frenzied life, the assurance that we are loved, protected in his purpose in spite of circumstance and in return, we get to do one very, very important thing. We get to live in His house forever. 

Question:

Where is God inviting you to lie down, to drink from still waters--apart from the noisy routine of your life--to refresh your soul?