For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.” Jeremiah 31:25

Weary, languishing? I think  we’re all feeling it about this time of the year and Christmas!! Ugh I feel tired just thinking about it. I know I’m not meant to say that out loud, I do love it, but goodness we put ourselves under some pressure and I need a lie down and a cool towel on my head before I even start.

We ask an incredible lot of ourselves and that’s not something we save just for  Christmas. Year round we call ourselves to long lists and keeping up and plain old trying to do too much and we very nicely wear ourselves to a frazzle.

No wonder we eat so much chocolate, no wonder we’re weary.

No wonder this beckons.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, 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.… Matthew 11:28-29

Thank God

We call ourselves to impossible standards and unkind demands.

Jesus calls us to rest.

Rest from comparison and competing with each other and trying to do thing’s He hasn’t asked us to do.

Rest from our long as your arm  “to do” lists designed to keep our world in control. I like a list and a time frame as much as the next person but what if it’s in between the lines of our careful lists, in the interruptions we see as annoying distractions that the really good stuff happens, where the God appointed moments and the great conversations happen. Where the laughing and talking and real caring and connecting takes place. They don’t need a list.

Rest from that so human push to want to prove our worth and earn approval and fit in and make our mark.

And rest from the constant pressure to do more and “be” more that makes us say yes when we should say no, that keeps us up late and driven and distracted and spreading ourselves way too thin. That kind of pace just doesn’t work for me. It leaves me second guessing and undermining myself and not doing anything particularly well.

It has me missing the moments and rushing past my life.

Anyone else?

So lets give it a rest. Slow down a bit, put the stop watch away and just give ourselves some room to breath. I think we’ll all feel better.

And here’s something, what if we took the time to value and enjoy the thing/s we are doing today instead of rushing on past them, instead of dismissing them as not really important, in our trying to do more or better or different. What if we threw our arms around what we are doing today and embraced it long and generous.

What if everyday we were simply thankful and grateful.

What if we put down the loads we are not meant to carry and leave the bigness to God and the increase to Him.

I thought that growing up means holding it all together, but I’m seeing now that it’s really only a great ability to let go. Amber Haines – in(courage)

And what if we  “fall into the arms of the ONE who has walked the walk for us, all the way to a cross, who lived and died in our place—who brings us into His death and raises us to new life. Edie Wadsworth 

See that’s changed all the rules. As strange as it seems to us He doesn’t call us to perform and prove ourselves and jump through hoops. He calls us to rest, away from our million things to do and from our tendency to measure our worth by super human performances. He calls us away from  our flawed reasoning and our strivey hearts and away from our regrets and self recriminations  – – – – and calls us to Him.

He is everything so we don’t have to be.

Love to you all today

Tracey xx

Linking up today with (if I get around to it)

Coffee For Your Heart

Three Word Wednesday

Wholehearted Home