When it’s okay to sit

Sitting there at the round corner table, small lamp spilling gold across the page, I quiet. He speaks, that shepherd boy of old; speaks for me: “Restore us, O God; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.”

I lift the mug, holding it in my hands, warming, thinking. Steam, carrying the lovely aroma, brushes my face as it curls upward, all mingled with the thoughts and feelings of my heart, drifting heavenward. And then The Voice…

“You don’t have to be ever-learning, ever-searching. It’s okay to sit in joy.” I feel His smile.

Ah, yes. It’s okay to simply sit. To be. With Him. He loves it (I remember this).

His voice comes again, once more through the shepherd boy’s lips, “I removed the burden from their shoulders. Their hands were set free from the basket. In your distress, you called, and I rescued you. I answered you out of a thundercloud, and I tested you at the waters of Meribah.”

Burdens on shoulders, baskets of slavery, distress and rescue, answers in thunder and testing by the waters. Oh, I know this one. Know it by heart.

I think of my boy, my bespectacled teenage kid who is wise beyond his years. I remember his kind, “So, how was your day, Mom?” Remember, too, my answer: “It was okay. I’m struggling, still, with waiting on God, with sitting here…” He knows what I mean.

“Mom.” His voice again is kind, confident. “You’ve passed the test. I know you get impatient sometimes and you complain, but we all do.”

I’m listening; still.

“But I know your heart. And if I know your heart, how much more does God know?” And right there in my kitchen, hand on a dishtowel, I know I’ve heard from Him.

Now, several weeks later, a divine ‘yes’ has come; a door has opened. Day by day, I store it all up, all these jewels falling down, and I ponder it in my hart.

It’s coming. I feel it. I know it. Someday (soon, perhaps), the story shall read, “Burden lifted, hands set free. Rescue in distress, answers in thunder, and ‘well done, you passed the test,’” at a Meribah of my own.

Today, I sit in joy. For all.is.well.

May I encourage you who, too, carry burdens? Who, too, haul baskets? Who, too, need rescue in distress and answers in thunder?

Walk faithful. Walk true. Walk tight; walk close, so close that you bump into His back, and you, too, shall be rescued, hands freed. Shall hear a, “Well done. You’ve passed the test.” And you, too, will sit in joy.