Devotionals for the Heart: Rest

Rest in God
A devotional by Tammy Karasek

I wish I could say my soul is perfectly content—that I have the kind of soul-rest that comes from God. 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. Where we turn off the noise. There is where we find sweet rest, deep down in our innermost being.

With this knowledge, one would think we’d take the opportunity every chance we could get. But nope, we try other things to calm us down. We read a magazine, a new book, go shopping or maybe dine with a friend. Yet, more times than not, we end up in a worse mess than we started. We are left stressed, frustrated and wondering why God won’t fix it.

When in this spot myself, I realized I haven’t asked for the calm, let alone the rest. I’ve ignored my time to sit with God and process the issues at hand. I’ve not read my Bible to meet God in that quiet space to allow him to pour into me that soulful 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. Will you be so kind to do that for me as well?

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Author Bio: 

You’ll find Tammy seeing humor and causing laughter in every aspect of life. Tammy’s past filled with bullying and criticism is the driving force of her passion to always encourage others and share with them the Reason to smile. 

She’s been blissfully wedded to her college sweetheart, Larry, for 36 years, mom to their grown daughter, Kristen and wrapped around the paw of a little puppy named Hattie.

She’s the President of Cross N Pens Christian Writers and a member of ACFW. She will be published in the 2018 Divine Moments book – Cool-nary Moments.
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Connect with Tammy:
Blog - http://www.tammykarasek.com
Twitter - https://twitter.com/tickledpinktam
Email - tickledpinktammy@gmail.com

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