PATIENCE IN THE PAUSE
Your heart is never stopping. Until you’re dead, of course, but it beats continuously throughout your day, throughout your life. Without stopping. I read somewhere that your heart actually rests in between each beat. In the pause.
I hate pausing for anything. It seems I am always on the go, doing something… usually until I drop from exhaustion. My mom says I suffer from the “go, go, go, collapse” syndrome. It’s not that I don’t take time to rest, at night or on the weekend or on vacation - when I’m “supposed” to, but when life (God) forces me to pause when I don’t feel like I’m “supposed” to, or when I don’t WANT to… I HATE it.
This is why God doesn’t give me many details about my future. If He says, “We’re going to that mountain over there,” I take off in a full-out sprint towards the mountain. But, I never go the right way… I end up falling off cliffs and bogged down in swamps and drowning in rivers I was never supposed to wade into. It’s usually only when I’m bruised and battered and worn out that I stop and realize, I’ve left God behind. He never told me to go this way. If I sit and be still long enough, He comes up and sits down beside me.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I thought this was the way.”
“Shhhhh,” He gently whispers, stroking my hair and putting His arm around my shoulders. “Be still and know that *I* am God. My ways are not your ways,” He says, smiling. “Would you like to try MY way now?”
When I take His hand and I follow Him He leads me in ways I never would have chosen. Down beautiful, awesome, and sometimes terrifying paths, but He’s always with me.
The trouble is my will never wants to pause. I’m always focused on how far away the mountain seems, and I’m always anxious to be on my way. I want to GET there!!! But, that’s not His way. We’ve all heard the tired cliche, “Life is a journey, not a destination.” Yeah, yeah… blah, blah, blah… c’mon… let’s GO!!! *laughing* When I shared this with a pastor friend of mine he told me, “That’s not how God works. God is old and He’s slow.”
A muscle doesn’t get stronger when it’s being used… when you’re running or lifting weights or doing push-ups your muscles are actually being stretched and literally torn down. It’s when you stop exercising - in the pause - that your body rebuilds the muscle and makes it stronger. And then we tear it down again by exercising again and it’s made stronger again when we rest again… and the cycle continues. My muscles don’t usually hurt when I’m exercising. Sure, there’s the burn, but it’s the next day (or two or three!) - in the pause - that I’m sore.
Just like in my life. I feel great when I feel like I’m accomplishing things and moving forward and making progress. In the pause, I’m sore. But without the pause, I don’t just “feel the burn” of accomplishment, I can literally burn out. There’s only the constant tearing down and no real rebuilding.
Obviously, God has other plans for our lives than for us to just race to the end. It’s in the pauses that He embraces us. (If we let Him.) It’s when we’re still that He reminds us that HE is God. It’s in the pauses that we can catch our breath and absorb what He’s been teaching us. It’s in the pause that we truly grow. If we’re patient… in Him.
SCRIPTURES
Psalm 46:10 ~ Be still and know that I am God.
Acts 17:28 ~ For in him we live and move and have our being.
1 Kings 19:11-12 ~ The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.