It really was a good week for me. I was extremely tired from all the running around, but I was so productive, both at work and at school, plus I was in a "good place" with God. On top of all that, I was managing to meet up with my friends, spend time with my family, and even my time with them felt so satisfying and productive, whatever that means in the context of relationships. Even now when I remember that feeling, it brings me satisfaction, because I love it when the different parts of my schedule and my life fit together like pieces of a puzzle. But one evening, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed (okay, I didn't say that every second was productive) and happened upon a Bible verse my friend had shared: "In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat – for He grants sleep to those He loves" (Psalm 127:2).
You know how they say that when God convicts you, it brings you comfort and joy, and builds you up? That is how I felt. What He was telling me was that even if I hadn't been doing all those things, He would still be proud of me, He would still want to give me rest, and He would still take care of me, for no other reason than that He loved me and wanted to do those things. How contrary that is to our ideas about having to earn rest, having to work hard to make something of our lives, and to show God that at least we are making an effort so that He will agree to help us.
A lot of times I even applied that mindset to my relationship with God. I made so much effort to get close to God right now. I would ask God to speak to me through the Bible and then I would strain myself trying to find a connection between me and the passage I was reading. There have been many times when He has spoken to me through the Bible, but so often it felt like an effort to hear His voice. I thought that if I could pray enough, spend enough time with Him, read enough, and so on, I could push myself closer and closer to Him.
Then came a time in my life - I think a period of about two years - when I could do none of those things. I would sit down to pray, would stare at the walls, the ceiling, the clock, and eventually just give up and walk away. At the time, it felt like a waste of time and I felt so frustrated with myself for not being able to come closer to God. But in retrospect, that was the time in my life when I was finally starting to give up the fight, to learn to simply be with Him, and - ironically - getting closer to Him without either praying or reading or anything else I thought our relationship needed in order to grow. I am not saying that either of those things were bad; what I am saying is that my attitude changed and I realized that I could most experience God when I stopped being afraid of failing. When I stopped being afraid that His presence would slip through my fingers if I didn't do the right thing or use the right "method."
It also doesn't mean that God hadn't been by my side while I struggled to feel His presence - simply that all my efforts and struggling were not allowing me to feel it. When I finally found that place of rest, the place where I surrender even our relationship into His hands and trust Him to draw me closer to Himself, I was able to feel it, and in time the hunger to read the Bible, pray, and so on also came back to me. Just as David says in our beloved Psalm, He made me lie down in green pastures and led me beside quiet waters (Psalm 23:1-3). He literally had to make me, because I kept trying to sit back up and struggle to make Him come closer to me, not realizing that He was right there. And then He showed me these words in Isaiah 30:15: "For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said, 'In repentance and rest you will be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength.'" Wow! How different that is from the principles that run this world, isn't it?
So often, we take even His own words and "instructions" and give more weight to them than to Him. But we see a different picture in the story of Mary, who anointed Jesus' feet with "nearly a liter of extremely rare and costly perfume" (John 12:1-8), the price of which equaled almost a year's salary at the time. What she did didn’t save thousands, it was actually counter-productive since it wasted so much expensive oil that she could have given to the poor, and it certainly did not go well with the religious leaders. How did Jesus respond? He said, “Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached in all the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her” (Matthew 26:13). But why? What was it that made what she had done so special? It was because it flowed straight out of her love for Jesus.
He went on to say, “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have Me” (John 12:8). So often we think that what God wants from us is to go, feed the poor, preach to the unsaved, love our neighbor, serve Him, etc. But Jesus really is saying, "All of that can wait; will you take a moment to just be with me?" Just look at the story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42).
The response I often get from people when I say this is, "But if I think like this, I'll just sit back and do nothing!" Here's what I would say to that:
1. First of all, even if that were your reaction, even if sitting at Jesus' feet and just listening to Him caused you to do nothing, there is nothing wrong with that - you would still be as valuable and lovable in His eyes.
2. Even if that were the result, God's plans would not fall behind because of you. Look at what Jesus says in Luke 19:37-40: "As he was drawing near - already on the way down the Mount of Olives - the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, 'Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!' And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, 'Teacher, rebuke your disciples.' He answered, 'I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.'" Even if you didn't evangelize and tell people about Him and do all the things He wants to do in this world, the stones would, and according to Psalm 19, the skies are already proclaiming the works of His hands and making Him known, day by day and night by night.
3. Nonetheless, what I have found is that when Jesus touches your heart, it would take more strength from you to hold yourself back from talking about it and praising Him, then it would take to actually share about it. Imagine how hard it would be for the disciples if Jesus actually followed the Pharisees' request and asked his disciples to be silent after all they had seen Jesus do and had experienced with Him.
What matters is what flows from your heart. That is all that matters. Even if no one ever sees it, even if no one ever gets saved from it, even if it’s just you and Jesus. It might be different in the world's eyes, but remember that Jesus is your only audience and for Him, the only thing that matters is what you do out of love for Him, whether that means risking your life to tell people about Him or simply sitting at his feet, listening to and admiring Him.
