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| Make Room to Be Refreshed series |
God invites us to accomplish more by doing less, to release the strain of busyness and be refreshed by spending time with Him.
Do you ever feel overwhelmed? If it’s not one thing, it’s another: another crisis at work, another project with a deadline, another soccer practice, another gymnastics class, another pile of laundry to fold, another errand to run, another problem with the house, another problem with the car, another … you get the idea. Sometimes there are ebbs and flows to the rhythm of life and other times it doesn’t seem to stop. It’s tempting to think that this problem is exclusive to modern times. While some elements of our culture encourage or seem to require us to be busy, the fundamental responsibilities that ultimately drive our tiring schedule are as old as society itself. Let’s go all the way back to Moses and live a day in his shoes.
Shortly after leading the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, Moses found himself responsible for some 600,000 families. When they needed food, they came to Moses. When they needed water, they came to Moses. When these weren’t a problem, Moses would judge their disputes. In the morning, Moses would sit down, and the people would gather around him to present their cases. Moses would hear each person and decide who was in the right, teaching all the people about God’s laws in the process. Because of how many people there were, Moses would sit there the entire day doing this until the evening. One day, his father-in-law, Jethro, came and saw what he was doing and told him quite simply, “What you are doing is not good.” But wait a minute, Moses was doing good things. He was providing for people, caring for them, teaching them about God. He was giving it his all from when he woke up to when he went to sleep. What more could God ask?! Jethro went on to explain why it wasn’t good, “You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you.” The “more” that God was asking Moses to do was actually “less”.
Now for Moses this meant that he needed to take less on himself, asking for help from others and trusting that it would all work out. Maybe you’re like me and it’s a struggle to trust it’s all going to work out. Sometimes it feels like admitting defeat to stop doing something good because it’s too much for me. It feels like an expectation (maybe even a bit of a contest) to be busy when someone asks what I’ve been doing lately. It’s easy to believe that being busy reflects being important so that my sense of worth is ever so slightly entangled with how full my schedule is. Whatever our reason for being busy, Jethro’s advice makes it clear that being busy simply isn’t good. So, let’s take his advice and make some room – ask for help with a few things, let go of a few things, and stop worrying about the rest.
Once Moses took this advice and made some room to breathe, God filled that space. He didn’t fill it with more assignments though; He filled it with His presence. In the very next chapter, Moses went up on Mount Sinai where he encountered God in an unprecedented way. He received the Ten Commandments, and God revealed Himself to Moses by allowing His goodness to pass before him. Moses let go of the things he was doing; as a result, he had room to receive God’s invitation for an incredible encounter. Moses accomplished immeasurably more in that encounter than he ever would have in all the productivity of his busyness. Let me assure you that God is offering a similar invitation to you. An invitation to accomplish more by doing less. More than that, an invitation to release the strain of busyness and be refreshed by spending time with Him.
This invitation isn’t an obligation but the opposite. Like the Parable of the Wedding Feast from Matthew 22, God invites you to come so that He can serve you. But what does that even look like? We will talk more about receiving this invitation next week. Remember to subscribe so you don’t miss it!
True! So True! Busyness is such a distraction sometimes, to thinking and to praying and even to doing things in right sequence!!
How good to receive the wakening to our God’s invitation to just come to Him and have His Presence be our refreshing!!
Jesus did say to come to Him and He would give us rest, and even working and doing from a place of rest is so much better than striving to finish a task or deal with any of the problems we face during our time on this earth!! Your words are ringing in my ears here and prompting me to listen, to pay attention! Thank you for this timely word!
Yes, working and doing from a place of rest is much better for us isn’t it. Being in God’s will and doing what He has asked us to do rather than striving to do other things is a refreshing place to be.
I love the comparison of today’s lifetime to Moses story. It is a good reminder to spend time with God and still do things that are meaningful.
Yes, I think in spending time with God we find out the things that we should do that are meaningful. Great point!
This post speaks to me so much, and I would even say this message has God’s timing written all over it, not only for my life but I even think very many would identify with what you bring out here! I am thankful to the Lord for these postings and I sense His Presence as I read them. Rest and Refreshing, Coming to Him to sort out our daily affairs, Putting our little hand in His for guidance every day! So good! God bless you in sharing these sound bites of His Voice!
Thank you for the encouragement!