Refresh

I am amazed at how God cares for each of us. His care is intimate and vast and it is something that I easily forget or take for granted. I often go about my days busy and caught in the hustle of day to day life and activities. In the midst of the hustle I fail to recognize His soft and tender voice, speaking love into my heart. The busyness chokes out the recognition of the blessings and the sense of His presence. But, in those moments when I’m able to pause and to hear Him, the Truth of His words sink deep into my heart, and I am overcome by waves of His love.

Today was one of those days. I am a pastor, and every three to four months I take a Friday “refresh” day at work. I have made setting aside this time a priority. At the beginning of the year I mark these “refresh” days in my calendar because, if I don’t, they honestly just won’t happen. And then, the busy will overwhelm. I know that I would just continue on, day by day and think: “I really should take a day to refresh” – and that’s all it would be . . . Merely a thought.

You might be asking, “what does a refresh day look like?” Great question. I have no idea! Each time before I step into one of these days I ask God what He wants me to do. After all, any true refreshment is only through a touch from His Spirit because He knows exactly what I need. This time is for me and Him.

On my last refresh day I had a lot that I needed to dream about and to seek His heart on in terms of the ministries that I am in charge of. I relaxed in the morning, and then went to the store to buy some cute ‘planning’ notebooks. At a coffee shop for the afternoon I asked God to inspire my ministries and to guide and to share with me how to bless the people a part of them. The blank pages in my notebooks were scribbled on and the refreshment of His guidance over my work was encouraging. I walked forward that next week feeling confident and inspired in the plans that God clearly spoke to me. Hearing His voice is refreshing.

When I got to work this past Monday morning I grabbed my cup of coffee and opened my calendar. What did my week look like? There it was, a pink block covering Friday: “REFRESH”. What do I do? I spent the day asking Jesus. At one point I felt deep in my heart that He spoke the word “write”. What? Write? You mean, you don’t want me to spend the entire day fasting and praying in silence? It has been years since I’ve written anything to share. I journal daily, but that is much different. Journaling is private. I knew that He didn’t mean for me to journal. Being a writer has been a passion of mine since I was a child. I used to write stories, make up plays (while my sisters acted in them), and write poetry. I remember in grade two when I learned to write acrostic poems. I was so excited that I came home and, using the name of each person in my family (and my extended family!) and wrote poems describing them. As a child I dreamed about being a journalist or an editor for a fancy publishing company in a big, bustling city. I have also been an avid reader and in University I studied English Literature. It was shortly after I finished my degree that I started to really sit down and seriously pursue what my writing career could look like. I began a blog and found a love for writing about and sharing my spiritual journey to encourage people in their own journey with Jesus. But then, when I started working full time at the church in pastoral ministry, I found I wasn’t making the time to write. Life was too full. Writing just slipped away from me slowly and unnoticed. The spark of the dream which had burned so brightly for years finally died out. Today, it has been four years since I last sat down to write. So, when I asked God what I should do on my refresh day and He said “write”, you can only imagine my surprise. Writing was something that hadn’t crossed my mind in years. So today, as I sit down with my iPad and a blank page open, I feel emotional. A deep joy and love for something that I had since forgotten about has shot up into the light and my heart feels overwhelmed by the goodness of God. My God knows my needs and He sees the very depths of my soul. I am His masterpiece that He created with great care and attention to detail. Even though I had forgotten about my desire to write, He didn’t and He asked me to do it. Why? Because He loves me and He knew how important this is for me.

This truth is for you too. God has beautiful and wonderful things to share with you. Things that you might not even know about yourself. Things that will fill you up and encourage your soul. He wants to bless you and speak love over you. I am thankful for this reminder. So, step away from the busyness and stop letting the “busy” of this season stifle the outpouring of love that God is waiting for you to open your hands to receive. He knows you deeply, cares for you and created you wonderfully. He might not ask you to write, but maybe there is a passion that He gave you that “busy” buried long ago. As you ponder this, I pray that you would feel the intimacy of His love today in a way that is unique and personal to you.

“. . . Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:4-10 (NIV)

Written by: Justine Dueck