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Give It A Rest

by Jerry Ousley  
12/08/2017 / Christian Living

            “Just give it a rest would you?”  That was my wife’s words to me.  See, I’ve got a bad habit of just hammering a subject into the ground.  I don’t know why I do it because I know what it’s like being on the receiving end.  One certain place I worked my boss also had that habit.  When explaining something he wanted done he would tell it at least three times before stopping.  And heaven forbid that you ask a question or make some kind of protest because if you did you were going to hear it at least two more times and perhaps more.  It kind of made you want to say, “Okay now; if you’d stop talking and let me do it I might have been half way through with it already – Give it a rest would you?”  But you’d better not say that because then you’d hear about it at least three more times!

 

            Like I started out, I’ve got a bad habit of doing that too, only not necessarily repeating the same words.   Instead I might explain it two or three different ways or go into some great theological thesis as my answer. Someone will ask a simple question and instead of answering it simply I’ll go all the way back to Adam and bring them up to speed through today.  Most people don’t like to hear their answers that way.

 

            In talking about turning a matter over to God, we’ve said that there are a few things we’ve got to do first before we can actually make that happen.  The first is forgiving others who may be involved in whatever it is we’re trying to turn over to God.  The second thing is to have faith and simply believe that He’s got this.  The third thing we need to do is to give it a rest.

 

            You see, most of us have a bad habit.  We want to turn it over to God.  We say that we’re going to turn it over to Him.  We may have actually forgiven those involved and we feel as though we do have faith and believe that the Lord will take it.  But we have a hard time just letting it go and giving it a rest.

 

            What I mean by that is after we’ve done those things we just keep on talking about it.  We keep bringing it up in conversations.  If we’re talking with someone who knows about the situation every time we get with them that’s what’s on our minds and every conversation regardless the subject will finally be turned to this burning topic.  We may be making small talk about the weather and come out with something like, “Ah I remember that it was raining on the day the thing I’m turning over to the Lord happened.” 

 

            Now we do have to be careful because there is a fine line between giving the matter a rest and praying without ceasing.  Some go to one extreme teaching that once we have gone to the Lord in prayer about something that we are demonstrating a lack of faith by praying for it again.  Others go to the opposite extreme and beg God over and over even though they have given the situation to Him and hammer on the same old things.  Middle ground tells us that it’s okay to pray about something until our answer comes.  It may be as simple as saying, “Thank you Lord for taking this thing from me.  I know You’ve got it under control and You are going to take care of it in the way that is best.”  But we just don’t keep pounding that hammer when we’ve already beaten it flat.

 

            Never forget the words of Matthew 11:28-30 which says, “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”   Go to Jesus, give it a rest, and He will give you rest.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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