It's been quite a while since my last blog post. Going through the pandemic last year brought a great deal of change for my family and I. We shifted ways of doing things in our home, our church, and our work life. It was a time of reinventing and creating new ways of connecting, communicating and still being able to produce the warmth within our family that it needed to be healthy.
The year 2020 became a year where we had to learn how to produce, but it also became a year where God began to teach me what it meant to have a heart at rest. Initially I thought God was teaching me this so I wouldn't go crazy. So that I could keep my sanity within a time of constant change and adapting. But as time went by I realized God had deeper teachings he wanted me to receive. He wanted me to understand what it meant to be at rest, not in the physical (though that is important) but internally. And how this was affecting my ability to produce in what he was calling me to do.
When you think of the word "rest" you don't often hear it being associated with producing. More often you'll hear things like, "I'm working late hours on this" or "I'm breaking my head trying to figure this out". Things that in reality add a negative connotation to what we are producing and rob the joy of creating in the first place.
I know, I have lived it.
Those that know me know that I am a person who loves to create. I create works of art, I write, and I love to bake and decorate desserts. But there was a time in my life where creativity was far from me. It was something that felt like a luxury, or I would feel like I wasn't being productive with my time. There were times I believed the lie that if I wasn't stressed out then I wasn't working hard enough to produce.
Then because I was so stressed and overwhelmed I would produce nothing.
But God has a very different view on creativity and how he wants us to operate when we seek to produce something in our lives. It doesn't have to be something artistic. It can be producing a new way of doing something, finding a solution to a problem or developing an idea.
God wants us to produce from a heart of rest.
You might be thinking "Well that sounds magical but it's completely crazy and impossible."
I get it. Humanity has taught us that in order to achieve or discover something you basically idolize that goal and push until you get there no matter the cost.
But when we function from a heart at rest in God we are unlocking amazing potential and incredible things being produced in our lives. And not even through our own effort!
Let me elaborate.
God is the Creator. He made everything in the heavens and earth. Have you ever stopped to admire the great amount of detail in certain flowers or small insects? Or have you ever read on the intricate ways our brain works? It's incredible how perfectly orchestrated God's creation is. No one can beat him at producing.
So imagine now the ultimate creator living inside of you. Imagine him being a part of your creative process, of the brainstorming that is taking place. Imagine receiving the guidance and teachings of the one who put it all together before the beginning of time. Wow!
But yet so many of us live as if this is so far from us. Many live as if stress and producing went hand in hand.
Let me tell you something, they do not! Stress is the enemy of creativity.
Killing yourself through your work, whether physical or mental, is the way of the world. Not the way of the Kingdom. When you are a child of God you don't function under the laws of humanity. When you accept Jesus into your heart and receive the Holy Spirit inside you, there's a drastic change in the way you produce. This doesn't mean you now you become lazy. It means that the manner in which you function and produce will now be different.
Success will not come from your own effort, but rather it will be a result of who you have become! You are a part of a greater plan and have an amazing counselor and comforter to guide you every step.
Knowing, believing and walking in this will cause your heart to be at rest!
God wants his peace to fill your heart and mind so that with him you can produce and bear great fruit!
Fear, insecurity, stress, doubt....all these things are obstacles in the creative flow of the spirit. They have no place in the mind of a believer.
Yet time and time again we allow these things to come uninvited and dwell in us.
We justify that, well, we are just humans and this is how we operate.
No, dear one, these things come as a result of a sinful nature and when we are made new in God they need to flee.
Will these things be trying to constantly creep up in our lives? Yes. We have a very real enemy that is constantly trying to discourage us from producing from the greatness that comes from being a child of God. But we can be wise and sensitive enough to discern when the thoughts that come into our mind are life giving or life draining.
I leave you with this thought....
Psalms 62:1 says "Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him." There is no burden that he can't free you from. He is the true source of strength and rest. Anything else is temporary.
Are you living with a heart at rest?
Are you frustrated from trying to produce under great pressure and stress?
Go to your Father, dump everything that is weighing you down at his feet and walk with him.
Let your heart rest in him and produce like never before!
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