By Kathi Pelton
This morning I spent time catching up with a friend that I have not seen in years. I know her from a ministry that did prayer and worship throughout the nation. As we dialogued it was amazing to find out that she has been in almost an identical season as we have just entered.
As we shared hearts about how God is bringing us into a place of stillness and rediscovery of who we are in him and who he is in us (apart from “what we do”), she shared that Psalm 131 is where she has found herself and is her personal prayer,
“LORD, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp. Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk. Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the LORD— now and always.” Psalms 131:1-3 NLT
For me, this Psalm ties into this scripture verse,
“Cease striving and know that I am God…” Psalm 46:10
A weaned child refers to a baby that has finished nursing at his mother’s breast— he is comforted and satisfied. His trust in her has been strengthened because she has met his every need. His hunger has been satisfied!
I have been running hard in ministry for over forty years. It’s been wonderful and hard all at the same time. But sometimes when you run too long and too hard you forget how to cease striving or how to calm yourself like that weaned child. You can develop a habit of “what’s next” or even a bit of a “Savior complex” because it feels like if you stop something will get missed or overlooked. I found that I am hungry to just be with him and to receive spiritual nourishment.
I have had to remind myself that if I stop God won’t miss anything or overlooking anything. Though he loves to invite me to partner with him in what he is doing— he doesn’t need me to strive. Right now he is resetting my soul. It’s like when your phone needs to be turned off and reset because it’s been running too long and is beginning to glitch. I felt like the past couple of years I was beginning to glitch.
Now he has invited me into a time of quieting my soul so that he can restore it. He has invited me into a greater trust in him than I have known because to cease searching for the next thing, the next initiative, the next assignment means that I have to trust him with “matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp…” (Psalm 131). It’s to trust that HE IS GOD!
Maybe I’ve been grasping more than trusting?
I have no regrets about the many things I have done and I have no doubt that I will do many more things in the seasons to come— but he has not only given me permission to cease striving but this is what he has required of me and what I must obey in this moment.
I am to lay at his chest and let him nurture me until I can be like a weaned child who is not crying in hunger.
I must admit that I have to press through my own thoughts and emotions regarding what feels like stepping backwards because I know without this reset I will only strive more and end up running ahead of him.
So, if God has called you into a season of rest and being nurtured, restored and quieted then do not let your anxious heart pull you into activities that are not yours to engage in. You are not going backwards you are allowing yourself to go deeper. You are obeying his voice that says, “Come away with me.”
God moved me back to the vineyards of California to taste of the sweetness of his love, to drink deep from his cup of kindness and to taste and see that he is good. He is offering many of you the pleasures— maybe not among the earth’s vineyards but in whatever garden he has placed you in.
“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. “In that day,” declares the LORD, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’ I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked. In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety. I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the LORD.” Hosea 2:14-20
A new episode is coming this week! If you haven’t listened to the last one, now is the time to do it. It is called, “Making Peace With The Mysteries”
Our book, The Sounds of Christmas, has become a holiday tradition in many families.
It takes you and your loved ones through all 25-days of December with short stories, a Christmas devotion and a poignant song that accompanies each day.
But you must order it soon to have it or give it as a gift to be enjoyed in December!
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c/o Jeffrey & Kathi Pelton
1161 Putney Drive
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