More Thoughts on Resting in God As You Anticipate New Things

I am at rest in God alone; my salvation comes from Him.

Only in God do I find rest; my salvation comes from Him.

-Psalm 62:1 (HCSB, CEB)

Photo: Pixabay

Are you anticipating a move of God in your life?  Expectation is in the air.  You have your hopes up again.

These are some more thoughts of mine about how to live in this season.  Remember that everything we go through, is always about our relationship with God.  The process is of more importance to God than is the destination, because the process is about our relationship with Him.

Let that set in.  We want the position, the promotion, the success, to meet that person and marry them, or a hundred other destinations.  But God sees the process as the important part.

God has a destiny for us, a destination for us here.  But those destinations are always secondary to relationship with God.  We need to get this and then choose it.

If we do not understand and treasure the relationship we have with God and let the process of life enrich our relationship with Father, we may find ourselves at the destinations we have desired without intimacy with God.

Sometimes the breakthrough to someplace in your life requires you to go deeper into God, rather than God doing things for you, while you stay the same.  At a strategic time in my life, when I needed God to make it happen for me and lead me to open doors; He instead gave me Galatians 2:20, which reads:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (NIV)

That was not what I wanted to hear, but that is what God had for me.  I got zero breakthrough where I wanted, but God was preparing me for a different and better breakthrough, gift, or destiny in my life.  About 6 months after hearing Gal. 2:20 from God, as my word for that season, my life became massively disappointing.

My dad died and my life goals felt like a dead end.  But, about six months after my dad died, I met my wife and we had our first date on my dad's birthday!  God took me through death, the death of my plans and my own dad's death; and on the other side, brought me into new life that I have been living in ever since.

Christ is still living in me and I am still called to live my life by his faithfulness and through his love.  In everything that is coming, that is ahead; I see that I need to rest in God and let Him save me or deliver me.  When I am anxious or afraid, fearful or tired from worrying, I need to rest in God.

God might seem to say "no" to what we want, and we might be anxious about that.  But, God does not actually say "no" when we are asking for something good.  He calls us to walk with him, abide in him, and rest in him; towards the answers.

I wrote this on Holy Saturday, on Facebook:

Holy Saturday
Easter is about communion with, the dying of, the death of, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Today is death day. It is tempting to fast forward from dying on Friday to resurrection on Sunday and skip the mourning and grief of Saturday.
Holy Saturday is about the space of loss and hope, the space of unknowing and disorientation, and the loneliness of letting go of one thing, before arriving at another. It is a very uncomfortable place where our faith is refined. In death, we may believe in resurrection, but we let go of knowing what it will look like.

Today, we let our faith go deeper and acquiesce to the mystery, and the ambiguity. We live with unknowns and walk with more questions than answers. We walk in the paradox of the already and the not yet. We resist the notion of having to understand or have things figured out, and instead yield to God, living in the moment, of uncertainty on the one hand, while receiving the loving embrace of Father on the other. We slow down, cease our striving, unbusy ourselves, and learn to be still and know that God is God, trusting our Father.

When we are in the "in-between", we must lean into God, abide in Christ, and rest in the Lord.  Walking with the Lord, there is going to be some or a lot of disorientation and it is good, because it results in more of Him in my life.

Here are some more translations of Psalm 62:1

Part a:

• Truly my soul waiteth upon God. (KJV)
• My soul waiteth in silence for God only. (ASV)
• To God alone is my spirit resigned. (AAT)
• To God alone I commit myself silently. (Har)
• Truly my soul looks in stillness to God. (Ber)
• Only in God is my soul quieted. (ABPS)
• Leave it all quietly to God, my soul. (Mof)

Part b:

• My rescue comes from him alone. (Mof)
• From him is my deliverance. (AAT)
• From him comes my safety. (Jerus)