(Message to Beth) Slow down and walk with God. Rest in Him. Be assured that He is fighting for you and that the battle is not yours. Stay yielded to the cross; there He will speak to you with His still small voice. Wait, I say; on the Lord. He loves you with an everlasting love and wants to walk with you each step of your journey. Stay in His presence. Yield to the cross. Abundant Life comes from there.
(Beth’s Response) Thanks for this message. I need continual reminders of this!!!! Yesterday I was impressed to just go up on Tirzah’s bed several times and lay there waiting on the Lord. I didn’t even have the words to pray. I let Him pray for me. I meditated on Isaiah 40: 31, “They that WAIT upon the Lord….” And so I waited, and waited. He refreshed me by interceding for me, giving me new courage, some good thoughts, and His sweet presence. I came back downstairs again with the courage to make ticket arrangements, think through some issues for the future, the itinerary for our travels, etc…! God is so amazing over and over!
Lately in talking about how I can get a visa without any higher education or even an acceptable diploma, I’ve felt very small and helpless without an education to offer these officials in Indonesia. I opened up to a passage in I Cor. 3:18-23 yesterday morning and sat there reading thoughts like…. “Stop fooling yourselves… be a fool in this world’s standards if it means you will have heavenly wisdom instead… wisdom of this world is foolishness to God… man stumbles over his own wisdom and falls… don’t be proud of following the wise men of this world… For God has already given you everything you need. He has given you Paul and Apollos and Peter as your helpers. He has given you the whole world to use, and life and even DEATH are your servants. (WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!) He has given you all of the present and all of the future. All are yours, and you belong to Christ, and Christ is Gods. (Okay, okay, Lord, I’m getting Your point!! ^_^)
Keep reminding me, of these things!! I’m writing this down so you and our Family of God can help me remember this and can pray specifically in this area!!
Give our love to everyone!
Beth and the Clappsters
Slow me down, Lord!
Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind.
Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time.
Give me, amidst the confusion of my day,
The calmness of the everlasting hills.
Break the tensions of my nerves and muscles
With the music of the singing streams that live in my memory.
Help me to know the magic restoring power of sleep.
Teach me the art of taking minute vacations…
Of slowing down to look at a flower,
To chat with a friend, to pat a dog,
To read a few lines from a good book.
Remind me each day of the fable of the hare
And the tortoise that I may know
That the race is not always to the swift;
That there is more to life than increasing its speed.
Let me look upward into the branches of the towering oak
And know that it grew great and strong
Because is grew slowly and well.
Slow me down, Lord, and inspire me to send my roots
Deep into the soil of life’s enduring values that I may grow
Toward the stars of my greater destiny.
Note: As Mrs Clapper is faced with so many decisions; please pray that the peace of God will rule her heart.
Streams in the Desert:September 3rd
Straining and striving does not accomplish the work God gives us to do. Only God Himself, who always works without stress and strain and who never overworks, can do the work he assigns to His children. When we restfully trust Him to do it, the work will be completed and will be done well. And the way to let Him do His work through us is to so fully abide in Christ by faith that He fills us to overflowing.
A man who learned this secret once said, “I came to Jesus and drank, and I believe I will never be thirsty again. My life’s motto has become ‘Not overwork but overflow,’ and it has already made all the difference in my life.”
There is no straining effort in an overflowing life, and it is quietly irresistible. It is the normal life of omnipotent and ceaseless accomplishment into which Christ incites each of us to enter….today and always.
Be all at rest, my soul, O blessed secret,
Of the true life that glorifies the Lord:
Not always does the busiest soul best serve Him,
But he that rests upon His faithful Word.
Be all at rest, let not your heart be rippled,
For tiny wavelets mar the image fair,
Which the still pool reflects of heaven’s glory…
And thus the image he would have you bear.
Be all at rest, my soul, for rest is service,
To the still heart God does His secrets tell;
Thus will you learn to wait, and watch, and labor,
Strengthen to bear, since Christ in you does dwell.
For what is service but the life of Jesus,
Lived through a vessel of earth’s fragile clay,
Loving and giving and poured forth for others,
A living sacrifice from day to day.
Be all at rest, so then you’ll be an answer
To those who question, “Who is God and where?”
For God is rest, and where He dwells is stillness,
And they who dwell in Him, His rest will share.
And what will meet the deep unrest around you,
But the calm peace of God that filled His breast?
For still a living Voice calls to the weary,
From Him who said, “Come unto me and rest.”
Freda Hanbury Allen
In Resurrection stillness there is Resurrection power
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The most affective workers I know are those who don’t allow themselves a moments anxiety about their work.
They commit it all to Jesus, asking him to guide them step by step and trusting him implicitly to provide the wisdom and strength they need for each day’s work.
To see them, you might almost think that they are to free from care, where such important matters are at stake.
But when you have learned God’s secret of trusting, you will see that a life yielded up to his working is one of rest as well as power.
BE STILL AND NO THAT I AM GOD Psalm 46: 10
Choose the better part and be a Mary rather than a Martha.
Martha, preparing that meal of hospitality, is doing a good thing–a necessary thing–an act of service–but if we try to do this kind of service apart from the life-giving Word of the gospel, apart from the vision that comes only from God, it will distract us and finally wear us down. Mary has chosen to listen to the Word. Jesus, the living Word, is present, right in her house, and if she is going to love God and love neighbor, if she is going to show hospitality to the stranger and care for the lost, then everything depends on hearing and trusting that word
