🕊️ Your Life is a Dwelling Place

“Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.”

—Psalm 127:1 (NIV)

We work alongside many Christians who carry enormous responsibilities and face a daily list of essential Kingdom tasks. Each task is valid, yet the reality is there are simply not enough hours in the day to do it all.

Every Christian knows the importance of connecting with Jesus. Yet when we wake to a pulsing task list—or a phone full of texts—it’s easy to forget that the day belongs to the Lord before it belongs to anyone else.

Burnout, exhaustion, running dry—however we label it—are symptoms that something is out of balance in our motivation. We know this isn’t how God intended us to live, yet we often don’t know how to pivot away from the well-worn path of servant-hearted striving.

Perhaps the first thing to acknowledge is that this self-imposed “everything depends on me” work ethic breaks God’s heart. We are His beloved—not His packhorse. God doesn’t want us living on high alert, believing that it’s down to us to provide all that’s required. He will provide all our needs according to His riches in glory (this includes time) – do we believe Him?

We were created with souls and it is in our souls that we feel, create, dream and allow our emotions to breathe. Our souls are battered by relentless demands and ungodly agendas. We need time out—at least weekly—to be rebuilt, re-envisioned, and cleansed. God requires us to stop and rest, ‘to restore my soul.’ (Psalm 23)

It’s worth reflecting that taking a Sabbath is not a suggestion—it’s one of the Ten Commandments. According to Exodus 20, God places Sabbath rest alongside commands such as “do not kill.” That should tell us something.

Without regular time with Jesus, we can far too easily fall into functioning in our own strength—and begin building little kingdoms of our own. No Christian truly wants this, but when we lose connection with the lover of our souls and don’t take time to listen to His wisdom, it is almost inevitable.

‘My grace is sufficient’.

As we read 2 Corinthians 12 further, we learn that His ‘Power is made PERFECT in our weakness’. Have we truly grasped this? Our weakness, when surrendered to Jesus, holds more power than our skill set. We are simply not capable of doing all that God requires of us without His direct and constant input - His skill set will ensure that we have all the resources necessary to get His jobs done. Lack of time is an irrelevance to God - He’s The Lord of time after all. What a relief this should be.

Yet how many of us look at our diaries and honestly think, "easy yoke" and "light burden"? How often do we feel the peace of God, which passes all understanding, as we face the week ahead? God’s Peace is intended to be our default setting, the resting state from which all tasks flow. (Philippians 4).

Could it be that we simply don’t trust God enough to give Him our time? One whole day each week when we don’t focus on what WE believe to be essential and urgent, that’s just not plausible. However, what if we gave this sacrifice of time anyway, might we find God in our corner in a completely new way, making ‘our’ responsibilities His? Might we find our list of ‘doings’ becomes more focused, fluid and efficiently managed and that our communications are infused with life instead of frustration? Might we find ourselves truly living those unforced rhythms of grace The Message Bible talks about in Matthew 11?

Dwelling with God - and doing things we love with Him alongside us are not indulgences: they are vital for a healthy, whole life. Jesus wants us healthy—spiritually, emotionally, and physically. He doesn’t want us trudging on until we launch ourselves with desperation into the nearest oasis – or worse, languishing in the midst of the desert because we’ve completely run out of water and can’t find our way to the nearest source.

Every Kingdom task is more achievable when Jesus has filled our tank with Himself. Let us accept the invitation of the lover of our souls and allow Him to love us into wholeness. Let’s give Him time, receive all He wants to pour into us and then share this blessing with a stressed out world.

Blessings,

Cathy