4 Conditions for Soul Rest

1) Don't be wicked. "But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. 'There is no peace,' says my God, "for the wicked."

2) Beat a path to Jesus: "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

3) Receive training in the art of soul rest: "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

4) Drop the heavy burdens in exchange for what's bearable: "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

Google and God

Google searches this past week have been crazy.  Between how much triple 19 fertilizer to use on our yellowing corn and how to clip duck wings so they can't fly out of their pen, there's a wide range of "I don't knows" that have been answered. 

Then there were concordance searches on Blue Letter Bible.  How I love that website!  When I can't remember the reference to "Christ is all, and in all," Blue Letter Bible comes to the rescue.  When I want to know the nuances of meaning for "keepers" in the King James Version of Titus 2:5, Blue Letter Bible grants me a window of understanding into what the author (and God) meant.

I had some questions for God this week too; and you can't treat God like Google.  No using specialized search terms that bring you back 1,697,832 results! Questions for God require reading all the blog posts God ever published. Do you know, that as I pondered some thoughts with regard to marriage this week, God used some passages from 1 Samuel to shed light on the subject?  It's just where I was reading.  But as I was praying for insight and wisdom, God opened doors of understanding from what He had written in stories about Saul and the Philistines, Saul and David, David and Goliath, David and Jonathan. 

This is why it is so important to continue reading the Word even when you may think there's no way that where you are reading could possibly relate to your current situation.  You breathe a prayer to Heaven for food for your soul and your daily needs and then begin reading, and God gives you manna!  The rock--as dry and hot and huge and ugly and hard as ever you saw--God strikes it and out flows water to quench your thirst. 

Do not count deserts and rocks and oceans and mountains and desolations and ashes as impossibilities!  Do not take blindness and handicaps and leprosy and illness as forever! 
The Word of God meets your point of desperation and says, "Yep, that's a strong thing, all right.  In fact, it is a stronghold!  It is a legion of devils!  It is something which no human has ever successfully overcome before. Wow, you are up against something entirely beyond yourself!"

And then it adds, "Don't be afraid!  One of you will chase a thousand!  Two of you will put 10,000 to flight!  Be of good courage!  I will fight for you!  I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD!  Ashes mean nothing to me:  I create beauty out of chaos.  Deserts and oceans--I create paths and roses where there were none.  I turn rocks into water, empty morning mist into manna.  Every single thing that you think is impossible--I can turn that thing upside down and inside out and even make it disappear!"

Dear friends, read the Word of God so that you are not faithless but believing!  Read the Word of God so that you have courage to face impossibilities.  Read the Word of God so that you overcome and are victorious instead of cowering and being a victim.  Read the Word of God so that the world does not overcome you, but that you overcome the world.
 
"I have written to you who are young in the faith
because you are strong.
God’s word lives in your hearts,
and you have won your battle with the evil one."

Am I Communicating or...Just Talking?

Words speak. 

Yesterday I did some writing and used the words fantastic and focus, nuance and lyrics, extricate and substitutionary. 

Sometimes I struggle for a length of time to determine exactly what word to use for the meaning I intend.  Language is a basic and vital form of communication. When you read something I write, it is truly "via (by way of) Iva"--her own unique and specific way of expressing her thoughts in writing. You get to read the sentences smoothly--not in the halting manner in which I write them:  two or three words, stop and think, a few more words, lots of backspacing and deleting, stopping to stare out the window and not even noticing the view which usually delights my soul.

Writing is not a flowing art for me; you may read in a minute what cost me an hour of time.  I don't seek perfection so much as I seek communication.  If the only word I can think of does not communicate what I mean, I simply grind to a halt.  (Sorry about that; glad you don't have to drink your entire cup of coffee before I realize that the word I want is "implicit.")

I also grind to a halt when there is nothing more to say!  I'm done.  If you were sending a bucket down into the well of words that I can provide, you'd draw up a bucket full of lovely words you can usually only find in a thesaurus but you'd be picking them out one by one and wondering what sentence they are supposed to create!  "No sentence at all," I would tell you.  "Just beautiful, beautiful words.  Don't they delight you??" 

And just like that, I'm done.  No more sentences, just words.  I need space and silence to put all those words into more sentences. 

Talk to you all later.