Surrender and Rest

Worship is not what I do… it is who I am.

It is not about song or musical ability it is a heart posture and focus. It is rest.

The hunger and burning desire for Jesus to be exalted above all else. The deeper he takes me into the mysteries of his heart the more I find myself intensely dependent and craving the face to face, breath to breath moments.

This past year has been the most transitional year in my life and if you know anything about my story you know I am no stranger to transition. Everything looks different today than it did last year at this time. It has been both beautiful and incredibly stretching. I have been stripped and spun around and around in the most beautiful way. Anything and everything that my soul could grasp as a possible identity has been flung off in this glorious dance of transition with my Shepherd Bridegroom King.

As things begin to settle and the dust clears.. all I crave is more of His eyes. All my heart desires is more of his presence. It is an all-consuming, ever-increasing desperate yearning. It is life. It is food. To sit in the downpour of His love until it fills me to overflow.. spilling out on those around me. I never want to leave.

My appetites have changed. My perspectives have changed. My relationships have changed. In the quiet of His extravagant love, I hear His whisper of “just rest”..

with deep breath.. I breathe in His love and out his praise. Enfolded in the frequency of His perfect peace, I sink deeper and deeper into His inheritance of rest.

These past 40 years have been anything but easy. But with surrendered heart and hands, my Shepherd has led me home into His rest, into His peace, into His presence here and now today. Not just when I get to heaven. But today in the middle of all of the questions and unknowns. He is my known.

This is the promise to all believers. Hebrews 4:7-11

The more Christ matures in me, the more confident I become in Him and my need of him.. I am more needy of Him than ever. I am uncertain of what anything will look like but MOST certain in the faithfulness of the author of this story.

I believe so often, we parade our plans, worshipping the idol of control. Disguised as responsible, we bow our knees to the familiar and comfortable. When the Kingdom life is about surrender, and the laid down life. It is rooted in one thing, Yeshua. Letting His life become our life. Surrendering our plans, our dignity, our pride… Just as He promised, the other side of that surrender is LIFE. It is in those places that we truly encounter Him. We aren’t just reading the story.. we are living the story… as we live the story we get the privilege of experiencing His nature and learn his character… his love.. his faithfulness.. his incredible care.

This is the place where the soul finds that He is a safe Father. You cannot be anywhere more safe than surrender.

It is in surrender that opens the door to rest.

Surrender and let the good shepherd lead.

He is trustworthy.