Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person. (Gen. 2:6 NLT)
I’ve called your name. You’re mine.
When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you.
When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.
When you’re between a rock and a hard place,
it won’t be a dead end—Because I am God, your personal God,
The Holy of Israel, your Savior.
I paid a huge price for you:
all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in!
That’s how much you mean to me!
That’s how much I love you!
I’d sell off the whole world to get you back,
trade the creation just for you. (from Isa. 43 MSG)
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them! (Psalm 139:17 MSG)
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Mt. 11:28 NIV)
It seems in my life that every so often I find my spirit/soul/mind/emotions all balled up. I get myself into a place where I’m too busy, too scattered, too unorganized, too overwhelmed, too….something. And then something will remind me to take a step back and just breathe.
Breathe.
Or I get balled up in discontentedness or some sort of restlessness. (The last two times I went through a major spell of that we ended up with subsequent babies. :)) But I remember a time in my life when I was chaffing against a perceived life-not-going-anywhere time. A very wise friend reminded me that maybe God was calling me to rest.
Rest.
By nature I want to be somehow on the move – not necessarily physically, but feeling that my life has momentum and purpose. And, yet, I get reminded that I am a human “BEING” not human “DOING.” And, besides, every life has value just because God created it. So whether I’m being productive or not, I am still precious and valued.
Precious.
God, help us remember today to breathe in your Spirit, to rest in your arms of love, to know deep in our being that we are precious and loved by you. Amen.