Find Rest in God

by Tammy Karasek @TickledPinkTam

I wish I could say my soul is perfectly content—that I have the kind of soul-rest that comes from God. Or that I don’t have stress or impatience in my life and I quietly wait as I let God handle everything. But I’m a stubborn only child and often behave like a toddler ready to strike into a full-blown tantrum. I like to do things “by myself.” What the toddler is usually trying to say is I don’t need you, I can handle this on my own. Have you ever felt this way?

We are told to take time to rest. Articles from women’s magazines to medical journals shout from the rooftops the benefits of rest. While I will not argue the importance of resting as in sitting down for a period of solitude or even sleep, the rest I’m talking about is a rest that comes from God. “My soul finds rest in God alone;” (Psalm 62:1 NIV)

The kind of rest written in the above scripture is what I seek. What about you?

As I have grown older and wiser, I have learned true rest in my soul can’t be obtained by anyone or anything other than God. No amount of sitting and relaxing in the sand by the ocean or in a rocking chair at a mountain cabin can give me that kind of soulful peace. Oh, most definitely it can slow us down and give us the opportunity to calm down or de-stress, but it cannot give us the kind of rest deep within us. We can get in the way of that.

When we read through Scripture and are quiet with God—it’s there in that time and space where we find that rest. Where we close out the world, turn off the noise and ignore the push for social media numbers. There is where we find sweet rest, deep down in our innermost being.

As I go along on this journey of a writer, it’s more evident that I also need this type of God-rest in every piece I create. I need to have patience for a magazine, editor or agent to take notice of the words I have tapped out on my keyboard. Yes, I need to work through the process of write it, submit what’s required and then move on to the next thing. Ah, move on to the next thing. That’s been an obstacle for me. I’ve gotten good at the write it and submit it (well that part sometimes!) but then I tend to sit and wait. That wasn’t working out for me, probably not for you either if you’ve done the same. 

What was missing? Seeking the quiet rest after the submission. To do this, I had to take the time to pray over it as I pressed submit. Next, give the piece to God and take up His soul-filled rest and move on to the next piece. Stop obsessing about it. 

I realized I hadn’t asked for the calm, let alone the rest. I’ve ignored my time to sit with God and process the writing pieces at hand. I’ve not read my Bible to meet God in that quiet space to allow him to pour into me that deep rest I’m longing for.

It’s me getting in the way. Not God ignoring me.

My prayer for you today is that you make it a priority to find time to sit with the Lord and seek that rest, deep in your soul, that only He can give you regarding your writing journey. We need to remember He’s the one who gave us this calling and you matter to Him.

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Find Rest in God - encouragement from @TickledPinkTam on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

You’ll find Tammy seeing humor and causing laughter in every aspect of life. Her past, filled with bullying and criticism from family, is the driving force of her passion to always encourage others and give them The Reason to smile. She’s been married to her college sweetheart, Larry, for 37 years, a mom to their grown daughter, Kristen, and wrapped around the paw of a little dog named Hattie. Born and raised in Ohio, her family now resides in South Carolina. She is the President of Word Weavers Upstate SC, member of ACFW and My Book Therapy/Novel Academy. She’s the Blog Editor for Word Weavers International. A Conference Assistant for Blue Ridge Christian Writers Conference. A monthly contributor for The Write Conversation. A contributor in the 2018 Divine Moments Compilation Book—Cool-inary Moments. Also a regular contributor to several other blogs. 

Connect with Tammy: Blog: http://www.tammykarasek.com  Email: tickledpinktammy@gmail.com