When We Need Naps And Nourishment

I sat on the side of my bed and thought, “I should use this time to pray.” Because I am basically on a forced fast as my mouth heals from getting wisdom teeth removed. I’ve had a lot on my mind and my heart lately. Still sitting there I think, ” yes, I’ll light a candle and get my journal out to record insightful things and then I will spend time praying.”

You know the way the Holy Spirit works though, that great helper that Jesus promised those who love Him. The inner tug towards the obvious or at least the spiritually obvious.

“You could just pray right now, right here, since I’m right here beside you.”

I was feeling pain mentally as well as physically. Everything seems worse when we are in pain. Everything seems worse than the reality when we need to be put down for a nap and fed a nourishing meal afterward. The way Elijah was when he fell asleep beneath the broom tree.

Imagine that Angel of the Lord who gently touched his shoulder. Awaking Elijah to feed him cake cooked on coals and water to quench his thirst. Elijah slept again only to be woken up and given food a second time by the angel.

Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, “Arise and eat.”  Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again.  And the angel of the Lord came back the second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat… 1Kings 19:5-7

This story fascinates me. It reminds me we all get scared and tired. I challenge you to read this whole story (1Kings 18 and 19) for yourself and see what God reveals to you on a personal level. As for me, I did stop right there on the side of my bed and I just prayed about all the anxieties I was having.

Fears, and doubts about who God has promised to be. My own forgetfulness of myself. I don’t mean the humble kind of forgetting myself, it was the more unflattering kind that looks like pride. I’m sure you understand. We all forget at times that we do still have things to learn, character to be built up by God instead of our own hoarding of knowledge.

I am so guilty of that hoarding of every bit of knowledge yet so much of it sits in a journal waiting to be acted upon. Maybe that is why the Holy Spirit corrected my morning gathering of my journal and pen and a candle… all my toys. It was time for a nap and time for nourishment from my Heavenly Father.