Hammocks

One of my roommates recently brought back a hammock from a trip she took to Costa Rica. Not long after she arrived home, the hammock was hoisted between and anchored to a support beam on the porch in our backyard and a tall tree a few feet away. We've only had this hammock for a few days now, but I love it; and now that the weather is getting warmer, I take every opportunity I can to spend time just laying in it and letting the breeze rock me back and forth. It was during one of these times in the hammock that I found myself swinging, staring at the sky and thinking about absolutely nothing. You know how great it is to think about nothing for once? I had long been craving a moment when I could take a break from my worries and my to-do lists and completely relax in my thoughts. In the midst of my swaying, I was hit with Exodus 14:14 "The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still".

In my last entry I talked about how this past summer my selfish desires had been at war with what God was leading me to do. I shared an excerpt from my journal regarding how annoyed I was with hearing his voice continually shouting out part of his plan for me. His plan wasn't what I wanted to hear. His plan scared me. But, by his grace, he gave me a heart of acceptance and turned my heart towards what he wanted for me. However, since then, God has stopped shouting. In fact, he has grown pretty near silent. Now, that doesn't mean that I haven't seen evidence of him working in my life and in the lives of people around me; but in the past few months especially, I have been searching for a sense of direction. I have been yearning for that shouting voice that had once exasperated me. I have been longing for him to give me more instruction -immediately. I have had no clue what he desires of me next, and I have been guilty of becoming frustrated and anxious, unable to bring myself to the point of waiting on him. Believe it or not, all of this seeking and pursuing his will became absolutely exhausting. Just this past Friday, I expressed how tired I was in my pursuit of God to my accountability partner. I talked about how I had spent so much time praying, begging God to reveal himself to me with no response or sense of relief. I felt completely drained spiritually, and was growing more and more weary with each passing day. And this is where that Hammock came into play...

"The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still". It had been so long since I had actually set time aside to be still. I get so caught up in wanting to be proactive and take initiative; and while those attributes aren't necessarily bad- they have wedged their way into my walk with God and crippled my ability to trust him and let him do the fighting. At that moment, laying in that hammock, God saw my struggle and met me. He didn't meet me with the answers I had been wanting, or a step by step plan of the course my life would need to take... but he met me with the reminder of a promise. It was a reminder to slow down, rest in him, and continue to love and pursue him through trusting that he is fighting for me. And now, I cling to that promise. How funny that in that rare moment of silence, God chose to reveal such a huge truth to me. All that digging and begging and analyzing and searching... Gah! All it took was a quieting of my heart.

**Originally written 1/22/2011