In a previous post, I mentioned the Lord has me in a season of rest.  Besides limiting my pursuit of hobbies, the Lord has limited my pursuit of Him.  Intense study and prayer are off the table; I too easily turn these points of divine relationship into tasks to be achieved.

This season has been bewildering because I tend to be goal-oriented and achievement-driven.  How do I rest?  Who am I, and what do I do in this season?  How do I flow with and relate to the Lord in rest?  How do I find a sense of worth apart from productivity?  These are a few of the questions I’ve wrestled with.

Last night, I felt as if I reached a new mile-marker in this season.  The roadsign came with revelation.  While getting ready for bed, I felt a sense of insignificance.  Now, this sounds worse than it was.  It was actually a positive, liberating feeling.  Put another way, I felt free from the need to be anything special.  As I prayed about this, the Holy Spirit brought more clarity.  He said I was experiencing what it was to be “not” as in  *not* I but Christ (Gal. 2:20).  Part of this season of rest is knowing my death with Christ.

A sabbath began the evening of the day Christ was crucified and buried.  You cannot rest any more fully than death.  It is complete cessation.  It is *total* dependence on God.  If anything is to be or to happen, if any fruit or life is to come forth, it can *only* come from God.

Jesus’s three days in the grave also imply waiting.  As you rest helplessly, you wait.  I can only wait and trust that God will perform what He has promised–resurrection.  But what a promise: “Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; sown in dishonor, raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:42-44).  Resurrection.  Christ, not me.

Lord, our hope is in you!