Be Astonished // From Psalm 37

The other day I was talking with a friend on the phone --  you know the kind of friend that you hardly ever talk to and don't see nearly enough; but when you do talk to them, you walk away feeling like you just took a deep breath of fresh air? Yeah, she's that kind of a friend. :) We got to talking about the awesome things that God has been doing in our lives and the way that He has been speaking to us through His Word. { side note: is it just me, or are those conversations the best ones in the whole world? What a precious bond we have with our fellow-believers! } All that to say, as I shared a passage of Scripture that has really impacted me over the last few weeks, Alex suggested that I do a blog post about it, so here goes! I hope you are as blessed by this verse as I have been.

"Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him;"

~Psalm 37:7a

Rest. My Bible had a fancy little letter in front of the word, so my eyes automatically dropped to the bottom of the page. The note simply read: 

"Be still" 

Be still in the Lord...how do you do that? The question has been on my mind for almost two weeks now. And to be honest, I don't really have a good answer. So as I was preparing to write this post, I decided to look up that word, rest, in the Strong's Concordance. The first sentence reads as follows:

to be dumb

It momentarily popped my bubble...not exactly the glorious revelation that I was hoping to find. But, I read on:

to be astonished, to stop; ... hold peace, 

quiet self, rest, be silent,...be (stand) still, tarry, wait.

To be astonished in the Lord. To be so amazed at who He is, and at what He has done for us that we can't even speak. So we quiet ourselves before God and let our hearts be astonished by His greatness.

Patiently. Again, a fancy little letter, and I glance down to see one, single word:

longingly 

To wait patiently is one thing, but to wait longingly... The dictionary would define longing as: 

"Strong, persistent desire or craving. Persistent or earnest desire."

This verse challenged me beyond what I can put into words. When I am at a place where it seems like God has stopped working in me {admit it, we all feel that way sometimes}, and even though I know He hasn't, this verse tells me how to wait. If I meditate on God's previous work in me, I should be filled with astonishment. So here I stand, in awe of Him, with an indescribable longing for more of Him. It is waiting with an earnest desire for Him to continue the good work that He has begun in us. And we know that He will {Philippians 1:6}.

This evening, may you 

Be still and astonished

in the LORD

and wait longingly for Him