Dare You to Move

You see it every day in the people with whom you work, and yet, you didn’t see it in your own life.

Well, okay, you finally did but not until you stepped away to lie down in green pastures and when you leaned over the quiet waters you caught a glimpse of it in your reflection. You weren’t sure what you were seeing but the shepherd knew.

Every day you witness children and adults afflicted with hyperactivity, frenetic actions and behavior that display energy but are so lacking in focus they inhibit rather than facilitate productive living. You didn’t know there was a spiritual counterpart to this syndrome

until you gazed into the waters and He whispered into your ear, “Do less, be more.”

And it’s true. You see it now with the benefit of a restored soul. The path of righteousness is no freeway and the speed limit signs are everywhere, “Stay behind Jesus.” He’s the pace car. He’s the God who moseys and meanders, the God who smells flowers and lights candles along the way.

In the shadow of great mountains, He reminds you of His unchanging self, His stillness, His long-stretching existence spanning what you know of time and infinitely beyond in every direction and suddenly all your activity falls into place behind this deep breathing savior.

You’ve been living in your head. Taking in information. Spouting words and opinions. Processing. Sharing. Persuading. Learning. Knowing. Yakking. Expounding. The willing participant in your own victimization of stimulus overload.

But now, seated at His table, you remember you are not just a talking head. There is bread, warm, aromatic, and soft. There is water, cool and clean. There is wine, robust and garnet red, like a jewel from His crown melted down. And a rainbow of vegetables from His garden, yes, He plants, waters, waits to produce this harvest which feeds your soul.

And someone washes your feet, and it’s Jesus, which sends all your grandiose delusions skittering for the dark corners, escaping the room with the demons who’ve worked to keep you under them. His gaze is like oil anointing you with smooth, rich mercy dripping down, which you receive with gladness of soul.

His presence is a heated rock applied to every muscle you’ve strained trying to please Him and everyone else. Now, there is only Him, and He is pleased simply by watching you eat, drink, laugh, rest

And everyone else can take a hike.

In fact, you should take one, too, to soak in the mountains, the green, the rushing waters, dashes of color, the aroma of pine, birds who sing knowing they are heard and noticed when they fall, for you are His sparrow

His sheep, His child, His friend. This rest reminds you, washes the amnesiatic sleep from the face of your soul so that you can stop racing around spending energy to purchase a head full of information and a heart full of cluttered newsprint spouting today’s headlines while leaving no room for dispatches from eternity.

Here on this outpost, far from your eternal home, you need to pull away to hear the music, the laughter, the fiddles and the clapping hands, on the dance floor of Heaven waiting to usher you home with a whirling celebration, not of what you’ve done but of who you are,

His child. Wanted, watched over, waited for, washed in His blood and wrapped in light.

You remember now. You are still. You are with Him. You are restored. Now, from this place of rest, I dare you to move.

I write to incite, visit me here.   Today’s post inspired by Psalm 23