“What then are we to do about our problems? We must learn to live with them until such time as God delivers us from them. We must pray for grace to endure them without murmuring. Problems patiently endured will work for our spiritual perfecting. They harm us only when we resist them or endure them unwillingly.”
–A.W. Tozer
“Submit yourselves therefore toGod. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
“Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, Like a weaned child with his mother; Like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
Psalm 131:1
“We are going as fast as we can, living life at a dizzying speed, and God is nowhere to be found. We’re not rejecting God; we just don’t have time for him. We’ve lost him in the blurred landscape as we rush to church. We don’t struggle with the Bible, but with the clock. It’s not that we’re too decadent; we’re too busy. We don’t feel guilty because of sin, but because we have no time for our spouses, our children, or our God. It’s not sinning too much that’s killing our souls, it’s our schedule that’s annihilating us. Most of us don’t come home at night staggering drunk. Instead, we come home staggering tired, worn out, exhausted and drained because we live too fast. “
— Michael Yaconelli
We have a problem. We cannot hide it anymore. It is invasive and a detriment to our lives. It is called activity, or busy-ness. It can destroy our souls as much as adultery, or stealing would.
Jesus commanded his disciples to rest, so we must conclude that this is necessary for us as 21st century disciples. But the current is strong and it seems there is no “slow lanes” anymore. Our days start early and we are propelled through it by the frantic pace of continual demands.
Can we honestly say that this is the abundant life that Jesus promised us? Is this the fruitful Christian life? The verse we must consider, “Be still and know that I am God.” That word “still” means to be without motion, calm, at rest.
Tozer wrote to his generation with the penetrating question,“Has busy-ness become the new holiness?” He observed that the Church was partial to activity, and that discipleship was becoming equated to work and movement. The presence of the Lord was no longer a factor to the modern disciple.
We must return to the Master. We must become quiet and listen to what he has to tell us. Matthew 11:28 tells us,
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
“For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” But you would not”
When I think “gentleness”, what pops into my mind is my wife holding and caressing my infant daughter almost 20 years ago. Her touch is soothing. She softly hums a lullaby. The farthest thing from her thinking at that quiet moment, is anything harsh or cruel.
One of my favorite verses telegraphs the wonderous news, “He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle.” (Isaiah 42:3, NLT). God’s temperament is gentle and kind. He is patient far beyond any human logic. As a matter of fact, his love seems to be borderline ridiculous. As believers, we need to get used to His strange proclivities of loving all and turning away none. I really believe that harshness and cruelty are the furthest thing from His mind or heart.
I for one, am glad God is like this. When I’m depressed or manic, paranoid or confused, I am so glad that God is not a man. He doesn’t give up on me, others have marked me off as a discipleship failure, and let me go. But He loves me even more than a mother loves the baby on her lap.
A.W. Tozer writing on Psalm 18:35: “Your gentleness has made me great.”
“God is easy to live with. Satan’s first attack upon the human race was his sly effort to destroy Eve’s confidence in the kindness of God. Unfortunately for her and for us he succeeded too well. From that day, men have had a false conception of God, and it is exactly this that has cut out from under them the ground of righteousness and driven them to reckless and destructive living.
Nothing twists and deforms the soul more than a low or unworthy conception of God. Certain sects, such as the Pharisees, while they held that God was stern and austere, yet managed to maintain a fairly high level of external morality; but their righteousness was only outward.
Instinctively we try to be like our God, and if He is conceived to be stern and exacting, so will we ourselves be. The truth is that God is the most winsome of all beings and His service one of unspeakable pleasure.
The fellowship of God is delightful beyond all telling. He communes with His redeemed ones in an easy, uninhibited fellowship that is restful and healing to the soul.
He remembers our frame and knows that we are dust. He may sometimes chasten us, it is true, but even this He does with a smile, the proud, tender smile of a Father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect but promising son who is coming every day to look more and more like the One whose child he is.”
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– A.W. Tozer in The Root of the Righteous, pp. 13-16. As quoted in the Banner of Truth Magazine (issue 531; Dec. 2007).
”Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil,”
Isaiah 1:16, ESV
”Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.”
2 Timothy 2:21
A Christian’s life should never be boring or mundane. For us who are disabled we are challenged in ways that others will never understand. As if normal life wasn’t enough, we’ve got issues that exceed the norms. Perhaps the most basic are areas of hygiene and cleanliness. I once went without a shower for five weeks when I was clinically depressed. (Somehow letting water pelt me seemed too violent of an ordeal.)
We are responsible for not only physical cleanliness but of a mental or an emotional one as well. I think we’d all agree on the essential need to maintain a certain level of physical health, but what can I do to stay mentally together? Are there standards there as well?
A soap dish can keep our hands clean after using the bathroom, but what of our hearts? It would seem to me that certain levels of being truly healthy apply to not just clean hands but a healthy soul as well. Isaiah spoke to his generation and declared they needed a spiritual bath. The people needed to become clean again. ”Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;”
This is a path of a ‘holy hygiene’ that we are all on. We are each responsible for keeping our hearts clean before the Lord. One of the principles of being spiritual hygienic is that of separation from things that contaminate or defile. We are to be a distinct people. This is challenging.
Holiness is often misunderstood. It’s rare to find a believer who has something other than a legalistic idea of what it means to be holy. (This is a grievous thing.) We should be holy and loving at the same time. “A pharisee is hard on others and easy on himself, but a spiritual man is easy on others and hard on himself” (A.W. Tozer). It seems that holiness, like hygiene is not ever attained, but only maintained.
“Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you,”
2 Corinthians 6:17
Staying clean and becoming clean should be a realistic pursuit for the broken believer. We are to be sanitary people that can touch others without contaminating them with our personal sin. You were meant to instill holiness to others for God’s glory. The Holy Spirit can do this.
“Let it be your business every day, in the secrecy of the inner chamber, to meet the holy God. You will be repaid for the trouble it may cost you. The reward will be sure and rich.”
“What then are we to do about our problems? We must learn to live with them until such time as God delivers us from them. We must pray for grace to endure them without murmuring. Problems patiently endured will work for our spiritual perfecting. They harm us only when we resist them or endure them unwillingly.”
but a healthy soul as well. Isaiah spoke to his generation and declared they needed a spiritual bath. The people needed to become clean again. 
Broken Believers 