Stillness

I have felt a heaviness resting on me lately. It’s been like a weight resting on my shoulders day in and day out. There was not really any particular reason for it, although a few things may have contributed to it along the way. It just wasn’t anything I could really pin down. I would pray, worship, seek the Lord, and was still feeling the weight. Teens these days would say I had a case of the “feels,” or that I was “all up in my feelings!” And, maybe I was…well, definitely I was.

Have you ever experienced this? It’s that feeling that you’re walking outside on a beautiful sunny day with a dark cloud hovering right above your head everywhere you go. You try to wave it away, try to ignore it, put on a smile and go on, but it just won’t go away.

God has been doing miraculous things in my life, in our family, our church, and in the lives of friends. And as wonderful as it would be to live on that mountaintop, it is not reality. I’ve always heard it said that you are either going into a trial, in the midst of a trial, or coming out of one. So, you are either going up the mountain, you’re on top of the mountain, or you’re descending from it. There is also the possibility that you are going around it, trying to avoid it! I know that because of what God has been doing in my life, it is inevitable that opposition will come from the enemy. I know these things, and yet, still was walking around feeling defeated.

Since I am armed with this knowledge, the question becomes, “How will I overcome this?” I can smile all day long and walk around like nothing is going on, while complete turmoil is roiling on the inside. I can put on my mask and pretend that I have it all together. OR, I can draw near to God, knowing that when I do so, HE will draw near to me. I actually posted something on social media this week about this very subject; not because I was preaching it to anyone else, but because I needed it for myself. I know that when I’m going through something like this, the only answer is to press into His Presence, to delve deep into His Word, to renew my mind daily so that I will be transformed from that “darkness” I’m trapped under, into His glorious light! Darkness cannot remain in the perfect love and holy presence of God.

Then this morning, I woke up and felt the Lord drawing me to Him. Not just to go sit on the couch and read my bible or to put in some headphones and listen to worship music; no, he was calling me into the quiet place, into the stillness and peace that can only be found in Him. I didn’t make my coffee. I didn’t fix breakfast. I went and grabbed my bible and my daily devotional, and headed outside. I really felt that I needed to go out and sit under a tree in the middle of the yard and read. I didn’t know why at the time. But when the Lord draws you, it is always the right choice to obey, whether you understand or not.

I went outside and opened up my devotion first, and began to read about God drawing us to Him in the quiet of the morning. He was confirming to me exactly why He had wanted me to go outside. I needed to get away from all the distractions, all of the noise of everyday life. I was not interrupted as I read my bible and spent time with the Lord. I was not pulled this way and that. I was in the quiet place with the Lord, in that place of restoration and healing, that place of joy and perfect peace. I was in that place where darkness cannot hide and where the clouds must lift. In stillness, the weight lifted. As I knew that my Savior and my Redeemer wanted that quiet time with me this very morning (and every morning), that He loves me so much that in every moment of my life He is holding me close, I felt the weight lift. As I sought His heart, I felt the weight lift.

We don’t have to walk around defeated. We don’t have to feel beaten down and discouraged. We don’t even have to be anxious or depressed, not knowing the reasons why we feel that way. He has made us MORE than conquerors, and in Him we are able to overcome through the blood of Jesus and through the word of our testimony. If you are trying to wave away your dark cloud today, don’t try to do it in your own strength. Find stillness in that quiet place, the secret place of the Most High, press into His Presence and find peace in the midst of your storm.