Resting in God’s Presence

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I think we, as a society have forgotten how to rest. In fact, I think some of us have never been taught or shown how to rest. The reality is that our lives are busy. We live in a modern world where busyness is part of the norm. But in our modern world, we have moved from busy to hurried sickness.

Hurried sickness is a phrase that originated with Dallas Willard who recently passed away. For those of you who have picked up on it, the book we are reading – Soul Keeping is basically everything he learned from his own personal life and being mentored by Dallas Willard.

Too often we are suffering from hurried sickness. Our souls are panting and sorely in need of rest. Busy is an outward condition, a condition of the body. Busyness is inevitable. Hurried is an inner condition, a condition of the soul.

The solution is for us to balance rest and activity. We need to balance activity and rest or there will be a sickness in the soul.

For the audio version of this and others teachings, please click here.

Week 5: Slowing Down

Is it possible to craft our lives in such a way that it gives us a freedom to experience God? I believe that there is a way for us to breathe freshness and vitality to us daily. For most people in the typical Evangelical church, the phrase “Rule of Life” does not get thrown around much. But a Rule of Life is a structure or rhythm for our lives that enables us to pay attention to God in everything we do.

Here are some great examples of other people’s Rule of Life:

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If you are curious about what a Rule of Life is or how to craft one, I encourage you to watch the video above.

Rule of Life

Week 2: Slowing Down

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In Genesis 2:2-3, God gives us a blueprint for a healthy rhythm of life. On the seventh day of creation, God enjoyed His completed work of creation and rested. In our fast paced society today, the concept of rest may be foreign to many of us. But as we see in Exodus 20:8-11, God commanded His people to take a “Sabbath.”

If you’re not familiar with what a Sabbath is, it is simply a set 24-hour period where you focus on stopping, resting, delighting, and contemplating. When we miss the time to rest, we miss so much of God. God speaks to us in our rest. God reveals who He is in our stillness. When we take a Sabbath, we position ourselves to hear from God.

In week of 2 of Slowing Down: Creating Room for God, we talked about Slowing Down to Honor the Sabbath. We had a great class and had very healthy discussions about what it means to honor the Sabbath. I encourage you to check out the video below (I was able to fix the camera angle and video quality from last week’s video). If you want just the audio, it can be found here: http://www.timothybkong.com/sermons-teachings/

I welcome any comments of feedback you may have on this topic of Sabbath.

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