Slow Down! We Move Too Fast. – PART FOUR

Posted on August 4, 2023 by Elizabeth Welte in Freedom Fighters

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”- John 14:27 (NKJV)

 

As I finish up my series into this idea of maintaining a “being still” whilst in the midst of the rat race, I’d like to be the first to admit that I don’t do being still very well. I am always on the move from one thing to the next. Even as I tried to streamline my life by eliminating things to participate in, I still find myself out on the raceway (constantly doing left-handed turns) in a need of a moment or two in the pitstop to regroup, only to speed off again. I knew that eventually I was gonna have to stop and see if my attitude towards taking that peaceful, quiet environment to meditate on what God has done in my life seriously and take stock in my relationship with God.

 

In a very funny way God used the chronic neuropathy in my lower back to literally put the brakes on my life so I could stop and shut up long enough to be able to hear Him. I needed to have an operation done so that an implant could be installed to provide me relief from about 2 years of pain that made me feel useless as an employee, a husband, a father, a son and most importantly, a child of His. In the days of my youth, I’d fool myself into think that I could use pain to motivate me to do better, but with age came wisdom and I soon realized that was just very foolish thinking. My attitude took a blow and I found myself in need of just being still.

 

There’re about five spiritual activities that I explored that apparently become enhanced when we choose to our being still. The first thing being still helps is having the right attitude, you’ll find that as a younger Elihu tells Job to stand still and consider the wondrous works of God in Job 37:14. In chapter 12 of 1 Samuel, being still helps see righteous reasoning, Numbers 9:6-9 helps us to receive instruction. We can see God working in us and for us as we read Exodus 14 or Ruth 3. And who could forget Psalm 46 as we come to know God… “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

 

“Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.” — Luke 4:1-2  

 

One the best things to understand when it comes to Kingdom matters is that we have a High Priest who can sympathize with our weakness and who joined the rat race and yet didn’t succumb to it. With that said, even Jesus had His moment where He needed to practice being still, and it would be in the wilderness that He would do such a thing. Satan threw the kitchen sink at Him and yet Jesus took His cues from The Father and was able to withstand the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. Because of that, Jesus walked outta the wilderness with the power and strength to do the task that The Father sent Him to do.

 

This is among the many examples of what Jesus came to teach us BUT this is the example where Jesus shows us it’s gonna take seclusion from the world in order for us to fix our minds on what God wants us to do for Him, His church, and His kingdom. Every other time after this moment when Jesus went away from the business of even doing His own Kingdom work, Jesus gives us the example of being still and being in communion with God. We need this recharge so we can be ready to enter into His actual rest and understand that we should take 24 hours to honor Him in Sabbath rest…that means being with His people on Sunday…no matter how unsettling we all can be.

 

As Jesus is in The Upper Room, many things were reveled to His disciples but He also wanted to give them something that only He can give, His peace. In a world that seemingly can’t slow down enough to see a pit stop, let allow be able to pull into one, we need to have the peace that Jesus provides. I don’t believe we were created to go at top notch speed, on the contrary, we were created for His good pleasure, so we could enter into His rest and be at peace with ourselves within His peace with us. It’s a pretty cool relationship to be in if we could only realize that we should slow down, because we move too fast, and get some alone time with the God of the Universe. Amen?

 

 

Written by Chris Hughes: Chris is a child of El Elyon, a son, a husband, and a father. He has an education in Biblical doctrine and is a graduate of The Colony of Mercy, 11/2003. He has been a Freedom Fighter contributor since 2008. You can email him at cphughes515@verizon.net.

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This Week’s Verse to Memorize: “Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. ⁹ And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.” Hebrews 5:8-9