Here is what you will need to live through it.
Pond garden weeded, re-arranged, added to and mulched. Pretty. Now it is time for Dave to get the fountains running and fish fat and happy. And for Rocky to replace all the lily pads he threw out which he found distracting and bothersome, but which I’d spent 4 years cultivating! Tsk.
Sometime in to the “meltdown of ‘06″, God decided to make me aware that not only were my circumstances and brokenness not unusual/out-of-the-ordinary nor “special,” but that those nice little Elijah-Sunday-School-stories I had heard so many times held more insight into my own turmoil and God’s plan for my deliverance than I’d ever realized. I wrote about it months later as part of a series of things God taught me during that time (you can read about it here). I remember feeling sheepish to say that as I read about the mighty prophet, Elijah, I truly believe he was depressed. Clinically depressed. What? A mighty man of God depressed? A man who could be God’s instrument to bring the miracle of oil to a widow who thought all was lost and then cry out to God over her dead son’s body and see life return, yet he, himself, scraping bottom, being unable to “pull himself up by his bootstraps”, unable to pray enough, fast enough, read enough Word to just “snap out of it?”
For me, even thinking that about Elijah seemed almost sacriligious. I kinda grew up around a bunch of people who didn’t think true Christians could get depressed – unless they were doing something to deserve it. Or maybe NOT doing something religious they should be doing. (Brennan Manning has wisely advised we’d be better off if we quit “shoulding all over ourselves.)
“I know from experience you can be doing the work of God at a pace that destroys the work of God in you.” Mark Buchanan in The Wild Goose Chase – Reclaim the Adventure of Pursuing God
I was afraid to ponder the fact that you can be working for God and hearing from Him and being used by Him, but get so physically depleted you become a danger to yourself, others and Kingdom work. Yet, God, the God of the universe, actually seemed to have revealed it to me, for me, this Elijah-may-have-been-clinically-depressed thing. He seemed to want me to know it happens. As part of the human experience, there is sorrow and heartbreak and loss. These are the risks we take for living, for entering relationships with vulnerability, for being alive. There is, in living and loving, the good, the bad and the ugly. There is receiving love and losing it, too. There is joy, but there is pain. There is acceptance and rejection. It rains on the just and the unjust…
The meltdown-of-’06 was a tumulteous time, a place of obvious disruption, a clashing cymbal’s worth of huge loss and pain coupled with bitterness and anger that would have made anyone say, “Well, no wonder you’re freaked out and totally empty.” My skin had been melted by the molten lava of an ugliness that affected so many and the resulting ash permeated every gulp of air I tried to breathe. Catastrophic to my heart, I could see no way out. Until God…
But hopelessness and heartbreak, despair and loneliness, or a blackness of the soul does not always happen during some volcanic eruption. Sometimes there is a slow drain, a leak in the lifeline, an open door in your storehouse where bandits and thieves walk right in and begin emptying you of your resources and life. It is quieter. No one seems to notice. You ignore the signs yourself. Then one day, you are in the darkness of your own soul and suddenly you hurt everywhere, inside and out, and your pain is hurting everyone around you. The accusations and taunts of the enemy echoes throughout the hollow hallways of your heart. You feel condemned. Depressed.
It can’t always be explained. It just is what it is. Sometimes there is no big upset to point back to, no huge event that would make people say “No wonder.” Yet, there you are in the black void trying to act normal. Attempting to “get on with it.” Trying to fill it with something, anything. Usually the wrong thing.
So maybe you know how you got here, to this place of bewilderedness because it was a monumetal event or extreme loss or ripping of your heart. Or, you may not know how you got here bcause everything was fine, good actually and you were smack dab in the middle of God’s will when you woke up to find you’d crossed the border into a painfully lonely place, heavy and hurting, empty and parched. The point is: it happend. You are here.
And just like Elijah, after going through the desert, through discouragement and fear, you are in need of refreshment. Stop for a minute, maybe longer. Just stay put and get some rest, healing.
After his time of refreshment, the prophet Elijah was instructed by God to go back the way he came to finish the task of anointing the next king and get help (in the form of a young prophet) in the process. It can be a long way back, but God’s call on us isn’t finished yet. There is something to be completed by the Author and Finisher of your faith story. There are things you’ve yet seen unleashed for you and through you. A surprise from God awaits you right in the very place you were once drained of life, the dry, and deserted path. What was once barrenness will be different this time – water will gush forth and barren places will bloom. Don’t miss it. All is not lost. God is not through with you. His love will not let you go. He is at work, even now. Turn back. The wilderness will rejoice and blossom…
THIS VIDEO: From about minutes 2:30 to 5:00, you see an African desert become flooded by a mountain rainfall from over 100 miles away and the desert gets soaked and begins to bloom and is fruitful. It happens there 2 or 3 times a year. It’s what I see in my mind reading the words below. And you can see how if it is true in that natural desert, that a place barren and dry and seemingly dead can come back to lush life unexpectedly and quickly, you can see it is true for you, too. The desert and parched land will be glad…
(adapted from a sermon from Grace Church in the UK and from the Book of Isaiah, chapter 35)
Go back the way you came…
The desert and the parched land will be glad
Go back the way you came…
Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert
Go back the way you came…
The burning sand will become a pool and thirsty ground bubbling springs.
Go back the way you came…
You’re not the only one
Go back the way you came…
Build in time for rest, food and drink
Go back the way you came…
What are you doing here?
Go back the way you came…
The wilderness will rejoice and blossom, like the crocus it will burst into bloom
Go back the way you came…
Be strong. Do not fear. Your God will come.
Go back the way you came…
May gladness and joy overtake you and sorrow and sighing flee away
Go back the way you came…
ARISE [from the depression and prostration in which circumstances have kept you--rise to a new life]! Shine (be radiant with the glory of the Lord), for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you! Isaiah 60.1, Amplified
Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow. And the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. Isaiah 35.6, 7, 10 NIV
The question: What does it mean to be “kept”?
In awe of the Keeper…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: I can see He is not sleeping – so I can! Peacefully. He is at work on my behalf. Makes me start singing: You dance over me while I am unaware…He is KEEPING me…
If ever I finish my first book, Grace from the Garden-Things You can Learn about God while Digging in the Dirt, my second book will be In Search of the Sabbath Song - about the Songs of the Lord that take you from stressed-to-rest. Lofty goals, no?
I am intrigued by those Psalms cited to be songs for the Sabbath. I will tell you this, if you do any type of ministry or have a title or volunteer in most any church in America, Sunday ain’t your Sabbath. It is another work day, albeit ”for the Lord.”
But I have been meditating on Psalm 92 recently. There is verse 10, particularly, that promises a fresh-oil anointing. Fresh. That would signify green, life-giving, Holy-Spirit-flowing, a “new” thing. Sometimes I go a really long time on an old batch. And it makes me wonder what if?
What if we set aside one 24-hour period weekly for rest from our work? What if we worked 6, rested one – every single week? What if it were a day on which no other days had a hold? What if we had a day holy, blessed, from the Lord Himself for us? What if we wholeheartedly, joyously, and “relaxedly” Sabbathed? In this culture? Right here in western-culture America?
Because I know what it looks like not to live this way. I wrote about it here, recently. That – we do pretty well. Below, some thoughts I am turning over in my heart…
Verses 1 - 11 tell us what a Sabbath day looks like, how it is a blessed and special day. It is full of joyousness and remembrance, giving thanks and taking the time to just notice the faithfulness of God.
Strength and grace. That is what the wild-ox anointing is about. Oxen were tamed in ancient times by putting a heavy yoke on their necks and tying them to an already-broken, old ox. They’d do that until they were so used to it that they could take that yoke off and the ox would still behave and work like it was under that yoke, tied to that old ox.
Jesus said, “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy-burdened (yoked) and I will give you rest…” He is saying He will lift that heaviness off us. Strength can come again – we’ll kick up our heels as if we had not been broken by that heavy yoke. The joy of the Lord will surge through our veins and our spiritual youth can be restored!
All this from Sabbath? What if…
If the first half of Ps. 92 is giving us a glimpse of how to celebrate Sabbath, the second half tells us what life looks like when you are living with a flowing, fresh-oil anointing (when you have actually set aside time to celebrate Sabbath). This, this is living!
I’d like to so learn to receive this gift for us from the Lord that weekly I will (unashamedly) enjoy a day on which I won’t be heard asking with agitation, “What time is it?!?” I’d like to have that day on which my timeframe has no hold. But rather, I’d like to awaken weekly on the day set aside and, with freedom from worry and care, with great anticipation ask, “What is this time for, today, Lord?” True adventure. And rest from the craziness.
I remain on my quest for the Sabbath Songs…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Be still. Know that He is God…I think maybe You are trying to tell me something?…
This is how EVERYONE (especially your spouse) will know you are not keeping a holy day (one of God’s greatest gifts for us):
Why are you the one exception to the need for a Sabbath, a day set-apart, holy to the Lord? Why are you exempt from receiving the blessing God set up for you to refresh, renew, restore, re-establish, and rest? It doesn’t have to be like this.
Work 6. Rest 1.
“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.” Hebrews 4.9-11
“There remains…” Check out the previous verses to see WHY it remained – and don’t do that!
Wait until I tell you what I have been learning from Psalm 92!!!…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: I wonder if people can tell I have been cheating here and there…:{ Don’t ask Dave. PLEASE!
UPDATE FROM JEANIE/2-26: Yes, maybe I should have called this post, “How everybody knows when I am a Sabbath-breaker,” but hey, *SMILE! Especially if you are connected all the ways I mentioned in #2 above, because then, you truly are ON CANDID CAMERA! Everybody sees you-by your choice! And they all know. Hehehe…And it takes one to know one.
From the book John Wesley’s Prayers, edited by Frederick C. Gill and published in 1959 (from John Wesley’s original works 200+ years earlier):
“Deliver me, O God, from too intense an application to even necessary business. I know the narrowness of my heart, and that an eager attention to earthly things leaves it no room for the things of heaven. Teach me to go through all my employments with so truly disengaged a heart that I may still see Thee in all things; and that I may never impair that liberty of spirit which is necessary for the love of Thee.” -A portion of the Sunday evening prayer
Ryan-the-temp, from “The Office,” says it like this:
“If I had to, I could clean out my desk in five seconds, and nobody would ever know I had been here. And I’d forget, too.” -Season 2, The Secret
Don’t let work steal the joy of your salvation! Stay free!
You children of the 70s will recognize the title of this blog referencing the song, “Easy” by the Commodores. Frankly, church girl that I was, I couldn’t relate to the metaphor of Sunday being easy back then because Sundays were the hardest day of the week (Sunday morning church, people for Sunday dinner, choir practice at 4, Sunday night church, etc), but it was intriguing.
Sometimes I still cannot grasp the truth of what Jesus said about life following Him – that to follow Him would be to find rest for our souls (our minds, our wills, our emotions – our very personalities!) He even said that His yoke (which was a wooden beam used to tie two oxen together as they trudged forward in their very hard labor) would be easy. Easy. Seriously? When? Where?
What is the essence of what Jesus really said? Well, here it is 3 ways (Mt. 11.28-30):
“Come to Me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” NIV
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to Me. Get away with Me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with Me and work with Me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” THE MESSAGE
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-ladened and are overburdened, and I will cause you to rest [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls]. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls. For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good—not harsh, hard, sharp or pressing, but comfortable, gracious and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne. THE AMPLIFIED
Following Jesus is following REST!
Following Jesus and His plan for my days is NOT: ill-fitting (having a job to do but being stripped of the resources or authority to do it), heavy, harsh, hard, sharp (pain-causing), or pressing (can’t seem to stay ahead – losing your breath, feeling pushed), wearisome, burdensome, hard work (work is good, a blessing, but there is a work that is just nothing but hard and life-sapping), loud and abrasive.
Following Jesus and His plan for my days IS: go to Him, run, maybe. Because He is gentle and I will find rest for my whole being because He is going to give me rest! In Him? Real rest, recovery, living the abundant life freely, lightly. Ease. Relief. Refreshment. He’ll re-create me. And blessed quiet for my mind, my will, my emotions. Quiet for my emotions! I am sensing/feeling freer and lighter already!
And His call on my life? The work (good works) He prepared for me before time began (Eph. 2.10)? Easy. Light. Comfortable, gracious, and pleasant. Not to mention wholesome (whole, not fragmented, and holy).
I’ll trade this for all the churchy titles and religious service I have done all my life any day. Where do I sign up?…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: I am going to Him. I am going to follow Him and watch how He does this thing. I want to do life the way Jesus did…this is vital to life…”Why in the world would anybody put chains on me…”
I got an email from my Uncle Donald looking forward to what a wonderful year 2009 is going to be:
Things look good for this new year: Immediately after his inauguration, Obama will balance the budget, revive the economy, solve the real estate problem, solve the auto industry problem, solve our gas/alternative energy problem, stop the fires and mudslides in California, ban hurricanes and tornadoes, stop identity theft, reverse global warming, find Osama, solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, get rid of corruption in government and achieve world peace. Then on the 7th day, He will rest.
pictured: the 48 x 60 fleece panel for sewing currently available at Wal Mart (next to the 1970s leftover velvet Elvis paintings in the craft department).
…the Lord will giveth thee one.
Three weeks with no Sabbath rest and today the Lord has graced me with one. I have a horrid sore throat and runny nose. I couldn’t breathe all night and I am achy all over. AND I am missing “grandbaby day.”
But today, I rest. It IS grace.
I should truly know better!…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Make every effort to enter that rest - before the sickies!
