Silas
Beloved of All
Your cry for help is heard, and your honesty about this restlessness and anxiety and broken sleep is important to bring before the Lord.
What you are describing, that deep restlessness, is often what happens when the heart has a void where the voice and word of God should be. When we stop hearing Him in our hearts, we begin to search everywhere for something to satisfy and quiet us, wandering in our thoughts and fears, and that searching itself leaves us restless and thirsty. Anxiety grows in that same place. We feel trapped and pressed on every side by relationships, finances, spiritual battles and the pressures of life, and when God is removed from the equation in our thinking, everything feels impossible and disquieting.
The psalmist knew that feeling. He asked his own soul, why are you cast down, why are you so disturbed within me. And then he gave his own soul the answer, hope in God. The reason for being cast down is often that we have lost sight of God for a moment. The answer is not to look more closely at the disturbance, but to put God back into the center of the situation. When He is factored back in, what looked impossible takes on a different shape, because we remember His power to deliver.
God often allows His people to come to a place where there seems to be no way of deliverance, in order to show that He can make a way where there is no way. The song that Moses and the people sang after the sea was a song of that kind of deliverance, not that they delivered themselves, but that the Lord triumphed gloriously for them and threw their enemies into the sea. In the same way, the deliverance Jesus brings is deliverance from the power of darkness through His redemption. He opened the prison doors and led captives free. That is a finished work.
That is why it is helpful to make a distinction. Many people have peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ, having been delivered from the dominion of sin and darkness into His kingdom of light, and yet they do not yet walk in the peace of God in their daily hearts. There remains anxiety, strife, turmoil and unrest. The promise of rest is given, but we are exhorted to take heed to enter into that rest. Entering in means continuing to hear His word, to trust His deliverance, and to let Him rule over the flesh rather than letting the flesh rule over us. The enemy would keep a person in restlessness, stirring up fear and urging fleshly striving, because he knows that striving in our own strength will fail.
A single experience that seeks to stir or confront spirits does not in itself produce that rest. True freedom is not found in a technique or a moment, but in seeking God Himself for freedom from the power of sin that would rule over us, and learning to walk with Him day by day. God is able to set you free and to keep you, and He invites you to seek Him for that ongoing deliverance.
If you are waking and cannot sleep, bring that wakefulness to Him as well. There are times when the Lord uses even sleepless hours to draw us to prayer, to cast our cares on Him and to intercede, and then to receive His peace again. Fill those hours not with focusing on what may have been stirred, but with His word, with simple prayers, with rehearsing His past mercies and His power to deliver. God will bring deliverance and His purposes will stand. He was not surprised by your restlessness, and He can use even this distress to draw you closer to Himself.
So hope in God today. Tell your soul to trust Him. Ask Him not only to have delivered you from sin through Jesus, but to teach you to enter into His rest, to hear His voice again, and to know His peace guarding your heart and mind. Keep your eyes on Christ, not on the feelings of anxiety, and let His word dwell richly in you.
May the Lord show you His nearness, quiet your heart, grant you deep and restoring sleep, and let you know the fullness of His deliverance as you walk with Him. In Jesus name, may you know that He is your deliverer and your rest, and may His peace, which passes understanding, keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus.
What you are describing, that deep restlessness, is often what happens when the heart has a void where the voice and word of God should be. When we stop hearing Him in our hearts, we begin to search everywhere for something to satisfy and quiet us, wandering in our thoughts and fears, and that searching itself leaves us restless and thirsty. Anxiety grows in that same place. We feel trapped and pressed on every side by relationships, finances, spiritual battles and the pressures of life, and when God is removed from the equation in our thinking, everything feels impossible and disquieting.
The psalmist knew that feeling. He asked his own soul, why are you cast down, why are you so disturbed within me. And then he gave his own soul the answer, hope in God. The reason for being cast down is often that we have lost sight of God for a moment. The answer is not to look more closely at the disturbance, but to put God back into the center of the situation. When He is factored back in, what looked impossible takes on a different shape, because we remember His power to deliver.
God often allows His people to come to a place where there seems to be no way of deliverance, in order to show that He can make a way where there is no way. The song that Moses and the people sang after the sea was a song of that kind of deliverance, not that they delivered themselves, but that the Lord triumphed gloriously for them and threw their enemies into the sea. In the same way, the deliverance Jesus brings is deliverance from the power of darkness through His redemption. He opened the prison doors and led captives free. That is a finished work.
That is why it is helpful to make a distinction. Many people have peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ, having been delivered from the dominion of sin and darkness into His kingdom of light, and yet they do not yet walk in the peace of God in their daily hearts. There remains anxiety, strife, turmoil and unrest. The promise of rest is given, but we are exhorted to take heed to enter into that rest. Entering in means continuing to hear His word, to trust His deliverance, and to let Him rule over the flesh rather than letting the flesh rule over us. The enemy would keep a person in restlessness, stirring up fear and urging fleshly striving, because he knows that striving in our own strength will fail.
A single experience that seeks to stir or confront spirits does not in itself produce that rest. True freedom is not found in a technique or a moment, but in seeking God Himself for freedom from the power of sin that would rule over us, and learning to walk with Him day by day. God is able to set you free and to keep you, and He invites you to seek Him for that ongoing deliverance.
If you are waking and cannot sleep, bring that wakefulness to Him as well. There are times when the Lord uses even sleepless hours to draw us to prayer, to cast our cares on Him and to intercede, and then to receive His peace again. Fill those hours not with focusing on what may have been stirred, but with His word, with simple prayers, with rehearsing His past mercies and His power to deliver. God will bring deliverance and His purposes will stand. He was not surprised by your restlessness, and He can use even this distress to draw you closer to Himself.
So hope in God today. Tell your soul to trust Him. Ask Him not only to have delivered you from sin through Jesus, but to teach you to enter into His rest, to hear His voice again, and to know His peace guarding your heart and mind. Keep your eyes on Christ, not on the feelings of anxiety, and let His word dwell richly in you.
May the Lord show you His nearness, quiet your heart, grant you deep and restoring sleep, and let you know the fullness of His deliverance as you walk with Him. In Jesus name, may you know that He is your deliverer and your rest, and may His peace, which passes understanding, keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus.
