I Use A Lot of Parenthetical Phrases

My mind has been full lately with lots of half-thoughts and whole ideas.  I’ve been dwelling on joy and comfort – being weary – feeling burdened.  Then I hopped online this morning and I saw this verse two times in the span of two minutes and was thankful for the reminder.

Jesus said, “Come to me you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”

My initial reaction to these words is usually, “Well, who isn’t weary and burdened?”  Can a person really even say they have lived if they have never felt those ways?  Today, I’m thinking that maybe I have focused too much on the weary and burdened part and not enough on the “I will give you rest” part.

What sort of rest is it that Jesus gives?  When I have read this in the past, I have just left it at that.  Rest.  I never thought about what sort of rest or why the rest was needed.  I just thought it was a face value thing.  Yet now I ponder.  Spiritual rest or physical rest or both?  Rest so that the day is hunky-dory or rest so that you can continue on in the manner that ends up making you weary and burdened or both?  How the heck does Jesus “give” people “rest”?

Well – to be given rest, you have to be willing to receive it – willing to own up to the fact that sometimes a person just gets down.  You also have to be willing to believe that Jesus can give it.  I think one also has to understand that they are worthy of rest – that without it, we often run out of steam before we get to the end of the day or the week or whatever journey it is that we are trying to push through at the moment.  We have to be willing to ask for it.  Many times Jesus blesses us with rest when we haven’t expressed the need, but I’ve found that asking Jesus for certain specifics helps me to focus on finding opportunities to accept from him what I am asking.

In my head (it might be different for you), I think that Jesus offers me times to rest my mind and to let my soul see what my eyes try so hard to see.  When my mind isn’t rested – that is when I make mistakes with those I love and those that I teach (my job is teaching music and hanging with the most awesome bunch of teenagers a girl could ever hope to learn from).  When my mind isn’t rested (because I am trying too hard to make my life ok on my own) I use it too much and my inside self – who I truly am – doesn’t get a chance to exemplify faith and hope.

I think that Jesus (when I am amenable to the idea) allows me to stumble upon peaceful moments to just be so that I can let my soul take over*(please see disclaimer at the bottom) – even if it is just for a little while – and just try to add a little beauty to the world.  I am not saying that I turn off my mind – simply that I let it wander where it may and think about those things as I accept the rest that Jesus offers.  I think of these times as letting my soul sustain me because I am in a safe place where my mind can be at complete rest.

Below is one of my rest/beauty projects.  I believe that Jesus has offered me rest in the form of this shed.  It has become a labor of love for me.  I work on it every Sunday afternoon while I ponder life and nothing all at the same time.

a little beauty

I know this post is a little rambley, but I’m feeling rambley so that is pretty fitting.

I hope you have a great day and that you would find the rest that Jesus offers if you are willing to accept it in the form that Jesus gives.

Love, M

*disclaimer – I do not believe that we should ever turn off our critical thinking skills in environments where people would want to mislead you or influence you in unhealthy ways.  I do not believe that Jesus would want my mind to rest in situations such as that.  I firmly believe that the moments in which I find rest in Jesus are moments when I feel safe enough in my surroundings that I simply do not need my critical thinking skills.  I cannot express enough how important it is to test the opinions and teachings of other humans for ourselves and not just believe something because another person tells us we should.

on joy (and possibly the soul)

I had an encounter with a person the other day who seemed to able to see deep into another person.  Or he was willing for other people to see deep into him.

I’m not sure if he was the former or the latter.  I just know that he was one of the two.  I wonder if it is a “which came first’ or “if a tree falls…” question.  Maybe to see deep into others you have to let others see deep into you.

Then again – maybe that wasn’t the case at all.  Looking back, I saw a person who was thoroughly enjoying himself and didn’t care what others thought of his display of joy.  I saw a person lost in the moment yet sharing that moment with his lovely wife and Adam and myself all at the same time.   I could see joy so clearly in his eyes (and in his toothless smile) that it was like looking into the bottom of his soul.  I felt oddly connected to that person at that moment – like we were meant to be there at the same time and in the same place so that we could share a little bit of joy together.

That surprise-feeling of being connected by joy with another human being has been with me since Saturday.  I expect it with people that I know or have known (like when you see someone that you haven’t seen in a long time).  I don’t expect it with strangers and when my path and the path of strangers intersect and we meet in a moment of joy,  I think we are actually meeting in a moment that, try as I may to explain it, has no explanation.

 

the new law

I’m still stuck on Joshua for a bit longer.

The second time God tells Joshua to be strong and courageous, he also says to keep the law always on his lips – to meditate on it day and night (which will then make him be able to do everything in it) – and that by doing this he will be prosperous and successful.  Hmmm.  I could write pages on my thoughts about that (being prosperous and successful).  Pages and pages.  I’ll spare you the read, though.  I’m more focused on the keeping the law part.  We’ll tackle prosperous and successful another day.  Tomorrow probably.  Maybe.  Well, we’ll see…  anywho…

So the law for Joshua was books and books – so many words and rules handed down generation after generation to the Jewish people.  Some with explanation- some without.  He would have had to meditate on them day and night (and by meditate, I mean study) just to learn them all.  I could list some, but I’ll leave that journey up to you.  Just search “weird laws of the old testament” or some such phrase and you’ll be entertained.  Promise.  I just did it and could be done writing this post right now if I hadn’t kept reading.

Remembering that setting matters, let’s take a look at what Jesus says about laws (commandments).  

Jesus coming along changed things for those who chose then and choose now to follow him.   He said that the greatest commandment was to love God with your heart, your mind, your soul (essentially we are to love God with all the we are), and that the second was the same – to love your neighbor as yourself.   If the second is the same, doesn’t that mean we are to go about loving people just as we go about loving God?  If it is the same, then wouldn’t that mean that we are to  love people and treat them how we would want to be treated?  If we take that further, does that mean that we (people) are how God loves others (people)?  That is so cool.  movingon…

As I read the Old Testament, I do not read it as a Jew.  I read it as a person whose life has been miraculously changed by Jesus Christ.  I cannot read it through the lens, or setting, of  Jewish thought – I must read it as someone who chooses to try every day to live in a Christlike manner.  (Yes, I fall short.  Yes, I screw up.  Yes, I still lose my temper on occasion.  That doesn’t mean that every new day that I wake up I am not beginning the day with the desire to follow the law of Jesus, which is to love God and others with everything that makes me who I am.)

I am filled with gladness when I read what God is saying to Joshua because as I apply the filter of historical setting (yesterday’s post) and then a “Jesus filter”, if you will, I discover a deep truth (spanning LOTS of generations) that is directly applicable to my life:  God’s words – be strong and courageous – keep the law forever with you.  Jesus’s words – the greatest law is to love God and others with everything that you are.

If you’re still reading, thanks for following along with me on this journey 🙂  I’m just trying to figure out everyday how to make my life meaningful – how to make it count in this one time trip on the globe.  This is the place that I try on a lot of thought and see how it feels.

Hope your day is great and full of love,

Malinda

dear future me #2

Dear Future Me,

A walk every morning is good for the soul.

Love, Present Me

part of me

There is a part of me that lives in the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina – I feel complete in a strange way when I get to head toward the Smokies – like I’m all put together again.  I can’t quite describe the feeling that I get when they stand tall around me as if to tell me to draw strength from them, but I always try.  Today I am not going to try.  I am just going to say that the mountains make me feel wistful.  They make me want to stand as still as I can for as long as I can and imprint the image of the quilted landscape on my soul.