Resting on One Word at a Time

The day commences with pain and fatigue, and we watch PBS, the little one and me. We read books. He runs living room circles, chanting. Naps early, then more PBS...

In between, minutes of facebook, e-mail, a foggy daze. Click, click, click. But never once to the living Bread.

Why?

I ask myself this question as he naps. On these foggy, heavy eyelid days of ache, why is it more restful for me to space out on facebook than to read God's Word... eat the Bread that heals?

Facebook distracts from the pain. God's Word, however, dives right into it. Takes me into the wound, deep, until I come out clean.

Clean, but not necessarily feeling better.

On these foggy days, after reading God's Word, I am left physically and mentally more exhausted than before I read. It is mental work. How can this work really bring my healing, my rest, when it makes me feel worse?

Mailman listens, and says this, "Rest doesn't come from reading your Bible. It comes from your relationship with God."

Rest comes from my relationship with God.

He suggests, on foggy days, I just take one verse and meditate on it. After all, one little crumb of that living Bread is all I need.

"That's why I've been writing verses on those index cards," I tell him. "I wanted to have just one verse to think about on days like today."

"So why didn't you do that today?"

"Because I haven't finished writing them out yet."

"So? Just start using the cards you have."

"But I have to finish them first. That's why I didn't go to the Word today. Because if I did, I would have to keep writing out verses and I was too exhausted."

Our eyes meet, and Christ declares it from the cross: It is finished.

The Mailman speaks truth. "Kati, just because you haven't finished writing the cards doesn't mean you can't start using them."
 
This never occurred to me. Yes, I suppose I could start using them...

Sneaky spirit of drivenness! That voice I was heeding, drivenness, telling me the work is not finished and so I may not rest. It is a lie.

More daylight passes and as the sun falls I rise to the bedroom and those index cards. Just one, he says. Why not start using them now? That Mailman has some revolutionary ideas...

I open the box and pick this one:

Mailman is washing dishes and I cannot get to the kitchen fast enough to show him this crumb!

He smiles and affirms it. "One word at a time!"

I eat this crumb and I'm filled, and I rest. And tomorrow the finished cards will be there waiting for me like manna, like the finished work of Christ on the cross.

For He's Going to Your House Today

They are coming to our house to pray healing over me tonight, and all the thoughts well up:

"What if they don't pray bold enough? What if they don't know my story well enough? How much ministry training do these people have? What if it's just a big hype and a big let-down? How much or how little should I explain about Be In Health or ministering with the gifts of the Spirit? Am I being a spiritually selfish snob, thinking these things?!"

Accusation.

He speaks in first person. I recognize his slimy, prideful voice. It's not me; it's that old spirit of accusation again. He wants me to agree with him. Fear, pride, guilt – and ultimately that accusing spirit.

I order him to leave me, and he obeys.

Then the prayers come slipping out like water... "What should I expect tonight, Father?"

I picture all the faces of these people who have so selflessly brought me before his throne everyday, not knowing me well, but treating me as their sister in need. Jesus loves me and lives in each one of them.

Jesus is coming to our house today. His credentials are more than enough.

Wait... Jesus is coming? To our house??

I can't get this out of my head, and I'm excited. Jesus is coming to our house! Today!

The old Sunday School song starts playing in my head... "For I'm going to your house today! For I'm going to your house today!" Zacchaeus! I pull my little boy onto my lap and tell him we need to read a Bible story about a man in a tree. The book falls onto my lap, and there he is waving at me from the back cover.

I never saw him there before! But there he sits in that tree. Clueless target. And all-knowing God here, knowing my every thought.

Hello there, God. Really? Today? Our house?

I climb out of my tall, tall tree and humble, assume short stature of the small man who was so blessed to have Jesus in his house and he knew it. I know it too. Excited, God with us, we read the story.

Come, Lord Jesus! Come tonight! Today!

We finish reading and look out the window and the garbage man is taking away my trash. I smile.

Today we will clean house and we will receive Jesus into our home!

Delivered from Drivenness

An army prays for my healing every day until Easter. I hand out the prayer requests after the first weeks of battle, and one warrior steps out with a prophetic word – REST. That word comes right as discernment comes and the spirits are so clear.

All this hypo-overactive-chronic-malfunctioning is the product of 30 years of Drivenness, due to Performance due to Guilt due to Accusation, who has worked so closely with Mr. Anxiety and Ms. Feminism, who are ultimately employed by Fear. I see them. They tell me lies.

Psychiatrists would have me embrace them as "me," yet I do believe: God made me good and these are not. 

But even the medical community agrees that 80 percent of disease comes from fear, anxiety, and stress (beinhealth.com). Doctors call them emotions; the Bible calls them "spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6:12b). Drivenness, for example, comes close and whispers, "I should do..." – and of course he always speaks in the first person so I'll think it's my own thought. As soon as I agree with what he says, the adrenals leak cortisol, fatigue sets in, blood sugar goes low, hormones get wacky, immune system freaks out. And there I am, stuck in the bed again. You have to admit their strategy is good.

Now, eight months after Georgia, where I had learned about these forces of evil and how they cause disease, an army prays and discernment comes and my eyes are opening. I see them so specifically, so clearly now. It must be the Scripture-glasses I have been wearing regularly since they started praying.

I go through those eight Rs – the ones I learned in Georgia. Recognize, Responsibility, Repent, Remove... Rejoice. I separate my true self from those enemies of my soul.

Now what? They have been my friends for so long. Who am I if I'm not Driven? He has really taken me places. Good places! I took pride in him.

The ministry in Georgia says that people with chronic fatigue are driven and driven and driven until they accomplish all they're "supposed" to in life and then... CRASH. The fatigue sets in. I read this just last week and I felt it in my bones. I did that – did all I should, all God required (or was it all that the ministry leaders required?), then topped it off by getting a family. Then, CRASH. Because, what do you do now, after you've accomplished all that was expected?

My friend Michelle goes ahead of me in a similar battle and she says we should ask ourselves: Are we being driven? Or are we being led? Because Jesus never drives his sheep; he leads us gently. Beside still waters (Psalm 23:2). How much more restful can you get than still waters? There have been times in my life when I've purposely sat down on a dock by a lake just to feel that kind of rest.

Rest. Supposedly, it's what I'm created to offer to my family and friends (Captivating, John and Stasi Eldredge). Supposedly, it's what Jesus offers (Matthew 11:28). But Rest is not listed in those "Eight Rs to Freedom." Rest is anti-formula and opposite everything I know. All I know is what I should be doing. Is this why I crashed into my thirtieth year?

Rest. It is chosen. Mary chose it, Martha didn't (Luke 10:38-42). Jesus says it's a good choice.

Rest. We have not kept a Sabbath-rest for two years. Not once.

Why am I able to do all but this? I'll try anything but rest... in my marriage, in my healing, in my Father. Is it because I'm Type A? First-born? Small-town? Bosacker? As it turns out, "just the way I am" is really just the way a spirit holds me hostage.

Drivenness is so obvious now that I can't bear his presence. I don't know what I'm going to do with out him, but I see him and I trust God and I fall out of agreement. I flat out tell him, like a break-up, "You spirit of drivenness, listen to me. You and I can no longer exist in the same space, and I'm staying here. In Jesus' name and by his authority – I command you to leave me, now."

And now, for the first time in my life, I begin recognizing this spirit around me and choosing rest instead. Sanctification is a process, but the one who calls me is faithful and HE will do it (I Thessalonians 5:23-24).