When Father was teaching me to Rest, He actually told me to sit still for long periods and do nothing.  It was hard. I felt condemnation.  Lazy was a word that kept popping into my head.  It was even somewhat frightening. Which is weird. Silence is frightening. It’s hard to face it alone.  And the drive to do something all the time is insistent. I’m responsible for stuff and people. I can’t leave them unattended.

Apparently, I was taught thoroughly that “idle hands are the devil’s workshop”. And it was so ingrained that I didn’t know how to stop doing it easily.  Quickly I saw how my enemy was keeping me from being much of a threat simply by keeping me busy. And Father wanted to make Rest a foundation in my life.  Breaking off that busy constancy required sitting, staring it down, without a book in my hand, without a hobby before me, without the computer, and without a companion.

The Rest that Father talks about, of course, doesn’t mean sitting still, it is a place inside our spirit.  We can be very busy and still be at Rest.  But if we haven’t experienced Rest, and what it feels like, it may require some drastic measures to experience it.

I sat a lot for about a year and it was pure torture sometimes.  But when I finally began to enjoy Rest unconditionally, then He moved me back into busyness but told me to take Rest with me.

That transition was interesting too.  Even though I’m very busy a lot of the time, I know immediately when I’m losing Rest.  And I stop for a moment, or many moments until I’m back inside it.

All the promises of God are inside His Rest and if we don’t know Rest intimately, then all our busyness will not help us acquire those promises.