Sit down and rest.

So I hadn't been to Envisage in a while (the young adults service that 2G aka. NLEC aka. the old ECC, hold), because of sickness and this and that and busy-ness.

It so happened the week I could come back, their annual "Kingdom" night was on, where it starts a little later, and is a combined youth and young adults service with a guest speaker - its an event of praise and worship. Been a while since I've gone to something like that.

I ended up sending a blanket text to everyone, and got 2 interested parties, of which one Gabrielle Chea fell asleep and didn't come along, and the other Sarah Soon joined me.

Since I've been listening to the new 'Shakers and Hillsong albums (despite not being a fan of Planetshakers music style, I actually have found the heart of their songs to be really genuine - at least a different style to Hillsong), and I was quite at home - I reckon going to a service and knowing the songs lets you free up a little more.

Anyway, life has been fairly overwhelming. And since last week, I've been progressively getting sicker and sicker. I've missed out on commitments like Student Life and church meetings and stuff and I'm sort of out of it. But during the service, after the sermon, God kept telling me "Sit down and rest." over and over.

And God graciously gave me a little revelation. Despite how I've been spiritually, maybe a little dry, maybe a little aimless, always room for improvement - He showed me something that I felt was pretty cool.

Often we can sing, or pray to find 'rest in God'. But what does it mean?
It should be as easy as sitting down. Sitting down is a natural thing for humans to do. See a chair on the train? You're gonna go sit on it - not a second thought. It's pretty much an action that's in our nature.

We were created in God's image. It was natural for us to walk alongside God, as Adam and Eve did - but sin got in the way. That does not change a single thing about our nature though. We're still made in God's image. Still meant to be with God. And so, resting in God should be something that we can do by default.

But Ashley, its hard to rest in God when you've just been rejected, suffered loss, disappointment, hurt, pain and brokenness. Or if you have so much to do, how can I have time to rest when this needs to be done, then that, and then that other thing?

There's no stock standard answer. But, taking time to genuinely sit with God and hear from Him? Or sing to Him? Read the Bible and reflect? Those seem like good places to start. But the idea is to be intentionally seeking to rest in Him. And be assured, He'll support you - just like.. a chair does.

So, I sat down during the music and praised God from my seat. Heck, I didn't even sing sometimes and just listened and meditated on the words and who God is. It was so easy to do.

The other half to the revelation is that, have you ever gone on an airplane and sat for too long without stretching? There was a whole commotion about some guy that was hospitalised because he didn't move for the entire flight and got some Deep Vein Thrombosis (where blood clots up in your veins).

If we sit and do nothing for too long, the rest that we've gotten in the Lord, the rejuvenation and refreshment, we sort of reach a point where you start getting spiritual DVT.

There are a whole bunch of holes in this analogy - my brain is ticking over them. But message that I really got from this entire thing, in short, was this:

1) Intentionally seek rest in the Lord. Make time or else you get burnt out.
2) Know when to take action, to be proactive in your faith.

At the end of the day, its a balance of resting, seeking, and acting. It can be easy to get caught up on either end, where we're all about receiving and not giving, or vice versa.