God of Revival & Rest

This past week was an unexpected one by far. It feels like a lot of chaos, from the do not panic emails, the news telling us to stay home, the fact that the virus has doubled in the state I live in within 24 hours, and that most of us don’t have school for the next couple of weeks. I went from hearing about this virus that had taken over the other side of the world to being impacted by it ¨overnight¨.

This situation has caused many of us lots of stress and anxiety as we worry over our loved ones and how it may or may not affect them. I know that for myself I have been stressed from the school aspect of things for multiple reasons. When this first happened, when the school first shut down, it was like a vaca. My school had no plan for work so I started coming up with a to-do list of all the fun things that I wanted to do. But then my school started to give work for us to do, which is fine but the fact was that it felt like all the work got piled onto us at once. Even though it truly wasn’t much work, I got overwhelmed.

This past Wednesday night my older sister and I were having a dance party in our bedroom because…why not?! We were getting each other all hyped up and having a blast. Towards the end of our dance party, I played a song that I have really enjoyed more recently. It’s called, ”Slow Up” and I’m guessing many of you haven’t heard it. 

This song has some words in it that have actually challenged me a bit.

Something I find so hard to do in life is to just sit and breathe. So many people tell me, “Abbie, just rest”, or “don’t always say yes, its okay to take a moment to breathe.” Being the stubborn self that I am, I say “okay” ( meaning yea that sounds nice but I’m probably not going to do it.)

When I listen to this song I feel like God is telling me to slow down, and not grow up too fast. To live in the moment and have fun doing it. But most importantly when I hear the artist sing, “slow up” I feel like God is telling me to slow down. 

To breathe.

And let me tell ya I hate it. I don’t hate God but I hate being told to do something that I know I should be doing.

Sitting and just breathing to me is soooooo boring. Not to offend anyone but I can’t stand it sometimes.

But that night I realized that when we rest it doesn’t mean to just sit and stare into outer space. Which is what I thought it meant for a while. But I realized that when we rest we are able to look around and observe the beautiful creation that the Lord has made and breathe in the fresh air he has provided for us to breathe. When we rest we should allow God to be in our presence and be open to hearing what he is trying to say to us.

I feel like I can speak for a lot of people when I say that these past couple of days have been filled with huge to-do lists as I try to keep myself occupied. In some sense, I have filled my days so full that I haven’t allowed my self to rest.

Not only has rest been a hard thing for me but I feel like having a relationship with God has been challenging. Our church services have been canceled which means I don’t have my good friends and family to hold me accountable for my relationship with God. Nor do I have my typical worshiping time with God. We are being quarantined from our brothers and sisters in Christ making it easier than ever to become an easy target for Satan.

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Right around the beginning of February, Bethel Music released a new song called, “God of Revival.” The begging of February was also right around the time when the world started to realize more than ever how big of a deal this virus had started to become.

Now with that being said, I’m not saying by any means that our God of Revival is the one who sent this virus to the earth that we live on. NO. In fact, I think the opposite. I think Satan is trying to attack this world more than ever because he knows that God has something in store and he wants to try and distract as many of God’s people as he can before he looses. The separation that we are having with our brothers and sisters in Christ, is Satan’s way of trying to weaken us and make us think that our God doesn’t love or care about us.

Last week Friday I had gotten this feeling from the holy spirit that right now is a time more than ever that we need to fight. But not only that but I feel like the Holy Spirit was telling me that we need to trust in God and stay strong. Cause at the end of the day God’s got this all under control.

I have felt like the Holy Spirit is saying that God is about to do something big. No one knows what that may look like or when it will even take place. But I wonder if our God of Revival is about to do something so big that Satan is trying all he can to stop it, even using this virus as a distraction. But Satan never wins. Jesus wins!

I believe God is on the move!!!!!! And I believe revival is on the way. God is about to do some incredible things.

Let me tie this all together. God is calling us to rest and trust right now. We need to be in his presence! But that resting and trusting is happening to prepare us for the next steps God is calling us to take. It is preparation for God moving in His church, and in the world.

Right now, we need to rest in our relationships with God and to stay strong. And we need to get ready to move when God calls us to move. 

God loves you and will always protect you!

Love,
Abbie