“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength…” Isaiah 30:15

This verse has been echoing in my heart the past couple of weeks.  And I have heard God’s gentle call in it.

Life has been going at breakneck speed as of late. And though I recognise that there are seasons of life where speed, fullness, busyness are a necessity, I also recognise within myself a tendency to continue on at the same speed even though the rest of life has slowed. And then I start feeling disoriented and uncertain.

There is a beautiful scene that I love to watch unfold in videos of a man called Monty Roberts, more widely known as ‘The Horse Whisperer’, working with horses that are new to partnership with a human. Because he has learned to speak their language, he can form a bond of trust with a horse which then enables him to have a rider on the horse’s back for the first time ever within 30 minutes of beginning to work with it. I admit it. I cry when I watch these videos.  If you have never watched one of Monty’s
videos, you need to.

There is the moment when the horse first comes into the pen that it is disoriented and trots or canters in circles, both directions, looking for escape, trying to figure out what is going on. And then there is the moment when it finally accepts Monty’s invitiation and comes into the centre of the pen to Monty, seeking leadership.

This scenario reminds of myself, and of the people God was speaking to in Isaiah 30. The sense of disorientation, the frantic trying to figure it all out by myself, going at an exhausting pace but getting nowhere. Then God’s gentle invitation to come in to the centre: “In returning and rest…”

I don’t particuliarly like the person I become when I am in that state of frantic speed. My values are no longer as clear and my relationships don’t receive the priority they should. I spend more time maintaining and no time thinking creatively and innovatively. I start to function more out of will-power than inspiration. Dreaming and vision become hazy and seem out of reach. It’s like all that I teach, and the tools I hand out to everyone else for staying centred in Jesus, living from a place of rest is suddenly forgotten.

Until that niggle becomes a jab in the ribs and I stop and re-evaluate my life’s rhythms once again.

At the start of the year, God was teaching me so much about living and leading from a place of rest and I was loving it. I felt alive, I felt that I knew life to the full, I felt like… me!

And now, I am hearing His call to return, return to that place of rest in Him. And like one of Monty’s horses, I am coming in to the centre, in to His presence again.

I read a blog post by Ruth Haley Barton this evening and she shares a wee something from Dietrich Bonhoeffer that I can deeply resonate with so I thought I would share it here.

“Who am I? They often tell me
I emerge from my cell
serene and cheerful and poised,
like a noble from his manor.

Who am I? They often tell me
I speak with my guards
freely, friendly, and clear,
as though I were the one in charge.

Who am I? They also tell me 
I bear days of misfortune
with composure, smiling and regal, 
like one accustomed to victory.

Am I really what others say of me?
Or am I only what I know of myself?
Disquieted, yearning, sick, caged like a bird,
fighting for breath itself, as at the hands of a strangler,
craving colours, flowers, birdsong,
thirsting for kind words, human closeness,
shaking with rage at tyranny, the pettiest offense,
tossed about in anticipation of great events,
helpless in worry for friends endless distances away,
tired, with nothing left for praying, thinking, working,
weary and ready to take leave of it all?

Who am I? This one or the other?
Am I one today and another tomorrow?
Am I both at the same time? Before others a hypocrite
and in my own eyes a contemptibly self-pitying weakling?
Or does what remains in me resemble a defeated army,
retreating in disorder before victory already won?

Who am I? It mocks me, this lonely probing of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest me; O God, I am thine!”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer