I just recently finished my sophomore year of high school, and these past two weeks have been so good to reflect on the ways Jesus has worked on my heart this past year. Through some soul searching, He has reminded me of His faithfulness. One of the biggest things Jesus has been teaching me is how important it is to rest and receive Him. This means to sit with Him in the quiet of the morning and listen to the ways He is knocking on my heart. This means to run to Him as I walk into my first period, anxious about an in-class essay. This means to come boldly to Him and listen to His wisdom when I’m tired of homework and activities and all I want to do is watch TV and eat Oreos. Jesus is revealing to me that sitting with Him is to simply receive and feast with Him in the mundane and the ordinary tasks that occur every day. Jesus wants us in all of our mess and in all of our need. We must simply approach the throne.
I write this with thankfulness because my whole life, I have dealt with a lie from Satan himself that what I do defines who I am. This comes through the way I sing, dance, perform in school, and even just the way I carry myself. But, I truly believe Jesus is transforming the way I look at my role as a simple human. And that is to simply desire an intimate and vulnerable relationship with my Father, and seek His wisdom as I approach the day’s tasks. When I sit with Jesus, He is transforming my soul to truly believe who He says He is. This leads to living in true reliance on our Creator because He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and He supplies us with grace upon grace. As the Lord is molding me into the daughter He has called me to be, He is molding the way I see Him, and therefore, I can truly find rest in my Soul-seeker. God is continuing to show me that He deeply desires every part of me, and all I have to do is run. Run to the Father with great expectation and receive all of His goodness.
If God has called us to approach Him and sit with Him, why are we so prone to not desire this wonder? Influence. The influence of culture to be someone you are not and to always be more. The influence of the people that surround you who want you to be one of them and tempt you into finding your identity in materialism and social media status. The influence of our own mind which is trying to speak to us in a completely different language than Jesus, who knows the fabric of our souls. And then the influence of evil. This influence is embedded in all of the others and is constantly trying to whisper lies into our hearts to stray us away from Jesus.
The crazy thing about all of the influences that keep us away from sitting with Jesus is Jesus gets it and He gets us. He gets that we sometimes tend to think about our smoothie awaiting us downstairs for breakfast more than the wisdom He is bestowing upon us when we are with Him. He gets that culture has fully captured our brains to think differently than who we are because of our fallen sinful world. Jesus gets all of our distractions because He knows us and He still loves us. He knows every single stitch in our body, and in our soul and instead of running the other direction, He stays and desires us. He knows every dirty thought that creeps into our human mind and He still looks at us and says,”mine”. He left the treasures of Heaven and slew the dragon so He could be my friend and your friend.
As we stray and wander, Jesus is our seeker and ultimately, He is our finder. He finds us and takes us in His arms, and He sits with us. We might wrestle against his embrace, but no power of Hell, no scheme of man, could ever pluck me from His hand (In Christ Alone). Jesus calls us “beloved” and just wants us to be with Him. So friend, as you take on your daily tasks and stand against the “influence”, know that your task is to remain in communion with Jesus. Sit and receive, my dear.
38 Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:38-42 ESV
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