"'Sit at My right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.'"

Psalm 110:1b

I was talking with my friend Robby last night, and he asked me what God has been teaching me lately.  I caught myself not really being able to think of anything, and I was ready to get down on myself.  So I answered by sharing a quick story of a minor event that had some personal significance for me, and I was able to pick out a little bit of a lesson: Pay attention to the little details and be thankful for the ordinary things of life, because God is working in all of it, even in the things you don't notice.

While part of me took that moment as a rebuke, saying, "Great, I haven't been as devoted to the Lord as I would like, and now I have to own up to it; but I just want to make something up to make it sound like I'm still learning something," I just realized that in the back of my mind, something or Someone was saying, "Sure, you haven't been committing yourself fully to the Lord, but that doesn't mean that you aren't learning something.  God uses everything, and all it takes is a new perspective to recognize how He is growing you.  Just look for it."  So He helped me find something, and it turns out that it's a much bigger lesson for me than it originally seemed.

I just opened up my blog and read the first few sentences of my last post, and I realized that had pretty much forgotten about the lesson I was learning just a little over a week ago.  I wasn't even finished learning it, because obviously learning to "give thanks in all circumstances" is a lifelong process.  So the Spirit convicted me, saying, "Why are you so caught up in learning new things?  If I have to always be teaching you something new, when will you ever learn the full extent of what I am teaching you now?  Be content to 'sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.'"  One cliché I've been taking note of a lot lately is when people say they're resting in a particular truth, and I've never really understood that.  But I think I finally get it.  I need to be willing to dwell on the truth I am learning long enough for it to sink in, and maybe even a little longer so that I can put it into action.  I need to be able to "rest" in the place where I am currently before I can move on to something new.  In this way, I think I've been showing myself to be very restless.  In fact, now that I think about it, it's been this way not just with specific lessons, but even with sermons and passages of Scripture.  If I've heard a message several times before, it's hard for me to listen intently to it again because I feel like I've gotten all that I can out of it.  But I know that's not true.  This has always been the case for me.  I've never been one to reread books over and over again.  Even if I loved reading it, when I'm finished with a book, it goes back on the shelf and stays there.  So I think God is telling me that it's time to mature and grow out of this part of my personality.  It's time for me to be patient and to persevere in sitting at His feet and listening for a while.

Peter says in his second epistle, "Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.  For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have.  I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me.  And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able to at any time recall these things" (2 Peter 1:10-15).  If I have not yet learned the qualities that the Spirit is trying to teach me and grow in me, then it is necessary for me to be reminded of those qualities so that I can continue to grow in them until the Spirit discerns that the fruits being produced in that area are sufficient for the time being, and it is time to move on to another quality.  If I do not allow perseverance to finish its work, I will never be mature and complete as the Lord desires for me (James 1:4), and perseverance cannot finish its work if I am constantly wavering between the various truths that I want to focus on.  Consistency in learning new things is of little value if I have no consistency in learning each lesson to the fullest extent.

So God's command to me today is this: "Come away by [yourself]... and rest a while" (Mark 6:31).  I need to remember the lesson He taught me last night regarding ordinary details and combine it with the lesson of gratitude from my last post, and I intend to "rest in that" for a while.