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MM.004: Rhythms of Rest & Daily Sabbath
pause……
Take some time right now to just be. Put your phone away, turn off the TV and radio, Close your eyes, clear your mind and be still… Take a few slow and deep breaths to calm your spirit and then just listen…
Okay, be honest with yourself, when is the last time you made time for this kind of mental therapy? God commands us to practice sabbath in our lives like He did after He created the world. I think if even God is taking time to rest then it is pretty important that we do the same! More so, He invites us to make this a rhythm in our lives. Not just an every now and then occurrence but an actual steady rhythm, a habit, an integral part of our natural existence!
If you were a drummer for a band and you just sporadically hit the drums whenever you felt like it but didn’t actually keep time with a steady pace I think you would probably be kicked out of the band! A drummer that doesn’t keep time is useless, no offense to drummers. It can be hard to learn to keep steady rhythm, but with practice we can get better at it. In the same way we as Christians can be pretty useless examples for others when we only hit up God whenever we feel like we need it. It is not conducive to growing our character or proving our ability to be consistent or dependable. With practice we all can learn to be better at keeping a steady rhythm with God. We have to be intentional and put in effort to make it a habit in order to get in sync with Him and His will for our lives.
Most interpret sabbath as a command to engage with God once a week by setting aside one full day of rest and intentional focus. While this is good practice, and it is awesome if it is possible for you to do this each week, the reality is that sometimes it is not possible to block off an entire day every week and, if we are keeping with our drummer example, is it better to practice a little bit each day or only once a week? I don’t think God intended for us to only spend one day a week in His presence. The rule of sabbath being one day out of our week makes it seem like on the other six days we don’t need to take any rest or time to focus on God and that is simply not true! I need God every day and every hour of every day! I would be willing to bet you can say the same. It doesn’t make logical sense then that we would drudge through the whole week on our own and then only take time to rest and acknowledge Him one day out of seven!
Like in music, when the rhythm is more upbeat, we tend to get a bigger thrill out of it! Maybe there are some extra fills here and there that really excite our senses but even the base beat is frequent and exhilarating, it takes you someplace! I think sabbath in our lives should do the same thing. Make time for it as often as possible! I like to try and work in some sabbath hours or at least one sabbath hour each day. I am no where near perfect at it but the more I practice mindfulness and plan for it in my day, the better I get, and the better I get at it the more my relationship with God grows. I then feel inclined to make even more time for it, filling in the dull moments and keeping an increasingly frequent beat which exhilarates my life with His presence. He wants to take you somewhere! Meet Him in the intentional stillness of sabbath every chance you get and let Him guide your journey!
Blessings FAM!
How often do you pause and spend time with God, not just in standard prayer but in an extended intentional way like we do for sabbath? Maybe it is hard for you to block out an entire day from your week to focus solely on God. If that is the case, try each day this week to at least spend an hour in sabbath. Silently and with no distractions, just listen. That, I think, is what separates this from prayer. Both are important but sabbath rest, to me, means not gripping about life which, lets be honest, a lot of our prayers are like that. No, I think sabbath is more so a time to clear all distractions, be still, and just listen. The Holy Spirit will guide you in that time. Start by trying for an hour each day this week, morning works great but whenever it fits best for you, and then just let the beat grow from there!
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TT.003: How Do You Normally Start Your Day?
I don’t know about you, but my least favorite time of the day used to be waking up in the morning. It is such a rude reality that we cannot spend our entire day in bed where we are safe, warm, and comfortable. Inevitably the time for rest always ends and we are forced into a new day of work and responsibilities. I said that I used to hate this time of day the most. I still have my mornings where I wish I could stay wrapped in my blanket cocoon for all eternity but for the most part, lately, I have been learning to appreciate my mornings. I am not consistent in this but I am getting better at it, when I wake up in a bad mood, I try to pray first thing and remember these words from Psalms and Lamentations:
“Listen to my words, Lord, consider my lament. Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.”
Psalms 5:1-3“Yet this I call to mind and therefore have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.’”
Lamentations 3:22-24These passages are just a couple from God’s word that help us to know the best way to start our day, which is in prayer! Let God be the first one you speak to each morning and I assure you that your day will go better! He hears us all the time but in the morning, when we speak to Him first thing, He listens and honors our devotion of our day to Him from the start. The end of both of these passages also point out a critical follow up posture to maintain throughout your day that is, expectancy and waiting.
When we invite God into our day with us, we must then wait expectantly for Him to show up. If you invited a friend to meet up someplace and spend the day shopping or exploring a new area with you, you would expect them to show up and go with you right?! And if you expect that, you would also wait for them at the place you planned to meet. You wouldn’t leave without them or return home instead, you would wait. I think too many of us have been let down too many times by unreliable friends. This inhibits our ability to expect follow through which in turn makes us unwilling to wait but God is our most dependable friend, He will always show up and follow through! Wait on Him and when He arrives, go with Him!
His mercies are new each morning. You don’t need to carry the pain, frustration, or problems of yesterday into today. He will give you new strength for each day to face its problems. Don’t look back and harp on the past and don’t worry about tomorrow, focus on today and look for God. He will meet you where you invite Him and with Him by your side, you can face all things!
Blessings FAM!
How do you start your day? If it is not in prayer, give it a shot! I promise you it will change your life! Where have you needed to invite God to meet you? Maybe you have invited Him to those places. If so when you are in that place do you look for Him? Or do you get caught up in the stress and check out? Don’t be a flaky friend to God who invites Him someplace but then doesn’t show up or wait for Him themselves. He will be there if you ask Him to be. You need to show up too! Expect Him to be there and wait until He shows up!
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MM.003: One Bite At A Time
A popular dad joke you may have heard before is, How do you eat an elephant?….One bite at a time! This seems like such a simple concept yet it is so hard for us to apply to real world situations in our lives. Why is that? Okay so lets imagine eating an elephant was actually a thing you had to do. Obviously you wouldn’t look at it and tell yourself, “Well I can’t fit it all in my mouth at once so I may as well not try!” So why is it that we look at the dreams God has put in our hearts, see how big they are, and say to ourselves that they are too big to achieve all at once so let’s not even try!?
Every God size dream is going to appear to be too huge to accomplish! That is one way of knowing it is from Him! This dream I have had for Flow Angel Media is enormous and for the longest time I had no idea where to start or how to explain it to people. (I still have trouble explaining it, that won’t change any time soon! haha) In college I discovered an enjoyment for most any form of digital artistic expression from Photoshop to 3D printing to coding and web design. I felt overwhelmed by all the directions I was being inspired to walk in career wise and in the end I settled for complacency in IT.
If you know me, you may know that this wasn’t my dream. If you have kept up with me recently though, you may be starting to see, along with me, how I have began to realize just how much God has taught me through my journey thus far. Nothing is wasted! Even though it hasn’t yet looked the way I planned for it to at first, God knew that I needed to take this slower route through some tough things in order to learn things I didn’t know I would need to know! Even though I spent years not knowing where to bite the elephant of my calling first, I didn’t stop wondering, learning, and seeking guidance. In the mean time I have grown in so many ways which has prepared me to take this next step which I will reveal to you soon…keep reading.
Another thing about elephants that I have seen people use as an illustration which I love is the fact that, an average elephant’s gestation period is 18-22 months long. That is at least twice as long as a human’s and at most almost two and a half times as long. The common illustration talks about how when we know something, like the fact that we are pregnant or that God has promised us something unbelievably awesome will happen in and through our lives, people may not believe us because they see no progress. Their unbelief does not discount the truth you know. Some times we are not called to share certain parts of our calling right away because the unbelief of others can rub off on us and cause us to lose faith in it as well.
I have been challenged in this regard a lot lately in different areas of life. I have been growing in wisdom about when and with whom I should share the glimpses of my callings, big and small, in order to protect them in their vulnerable unformed state. My fundamental flaw is overthinking and then being so sure of myself that I talk up a storm and then either lose all desire to follow through or have things crumble in front of me and make me look like the fool I was for presuming to know how God would work things out.
In light of all of that, I do not share this lightly. Some close friends and family already know what has been going on because there are some that I crave advice and prayers from and whom I trust to support me and not bash down my excitement. I feel like it is official enough now to share publicly and it may not come as a major surprise but….as of 8/8/2020, Flow Angel Media, Inc is officially registered as a nonprofit! I submitted the paperwork on that day and received the confirmation that processing has been completed just this morning! It’s finally official!! As an added display of God’s perfect timing, I ordered 50 stickers of this elephant design to have and offer as a launch special product. My vendor had an amazing deal on them but they were not supposed to make it till the 24th. However, yesterday I got confirmation that they would be delivered today and they have! I cannot ignore God’s perfect timing in all of this!
It feels like I have finally birthed this long gestated dream out into the world and now I get to nurture it and watch it grow! I am so excited for this new journey and cannot wait to see what God does through it all!
Blessings FAM!
p.s. Keep an eye out for the elephant stickers to hit my shop! I’ll have a special launch deal on them for a bit to celebrate the establishment of FAM, Inc!
What is a dream you have felt called to by God? What is holding you back from taking steps towards that dream? Do not let the unbelief of others discount your internal conviction to chase after it! God speaks directly to us and others are on their own journeys, they cannot always see the progress God is making inside of you. I pray for your wisdom to know when and to whom you should share your dreams with and for the boldness to work towards them each day regardless of external forces of encouragement or a lack there of. I hope that God brings your people around you, like He has for me, to believe with you in prayer for the realization of your calling.
