Dear One,
It was my 6th day of COVID when I crawled into my morning chair for some time with God. My chest was tight from all the coughing spasms. I was over (but not over) being confined to a few rooms and cut off from the outside world. Everything felt constricted and restricted, inside and out.
And that’s when the words came: Roam & Rest.
I knew these words, but they hadn’t visited me for several years. They’re found in Psalm 37. In the Psalm that starts off with, “Do not fret.” Instead of fretting (which is constricting & restricting, yes?) it suggests an antidote: roam and rest.
“Roam and Rest in God’s faithfulness,” to be exact.
Psalm 37:3 (Voice)
Roam & rest: As soon as I heard them, my chest expanded and I took in air. These words felt like opening, not closing; like abundance, not scarcity, like freedom, not restriction.
Roam & rest feel like there’s time. Like there’s space. They feel non-anxiousy, like meandering, and who of us makes time to meander these days? (If you’re one of the wise who do, raise your hand over there, we’ve come to learn from you🙋🏼♀️!!). These words feel wide and welcoming and anti-crack-the-whip.
To roam & rest in God’s faithfulness feels like I don’t need to be quarantined to just one room … in my house or my spirit (hello!). They sound to me like God’s faithfulness is far-reaching. It’s here, and it’s over here, and Hey! Look! it’s all the way over there, too!! I can’t reach its edges. It has no end.
The faithfulness of God is vast, my friend. So vast we can get lost in it, and still be found.
Roaming and resting means that within God’s faithfulness there is room for me to do nothing and go nowhere (big relief since that describes my week!!). And we can do so because it’s not all dependent on us. It’s all held in the larger lap of God.
God’s faithfulness is always under foot!
And friend, his faithfulness is no flimsy little piece of real estate! Faithfulness means firm. Secure. It can hold the whole weight of you and me both.We can stomp on it, beat fists on it, play, run and dance on it. It is strong. It will hold. We can build a house there. A life.
So friend, rest. Roam. There is room and all is held.
Roam & Rest: Our Little Life Words of the week.
Ponder:
- Notice where you feel constricted or restricted:
- In your thoughts
- In your spirit
- In your body
- In your work
- In your relationships
- What might be the underlying cause?
Practice:
- Meander. Explore. Get lost. Find something new.
- Spend some time with the earth. Stomp on it. Pound on it. Run, skip, and dance upon it. Feel the way it holds you. Stretch the whole of you out, right there, and take a nap on it. Then do the same with God.
- Follow my friend Cindy VanLunen on Instagram for daily expansive photos of sky and sea.
Play:
- Our song of the week is: Breathe by Jonny Diaz.
Pray:
- Free me from the constricting powers of fret and fear.