Whether you are:

Trying God for the first time. Learning to have a relationship with God. Becoming a child of God.

Know there is a time and a place for everything (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). What time is it now?

Rest Easy

Be Still

"Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10).

When was the last time you stilled your heart, body, and mind from the everyday woes that seem never-ending?

If you can't remember, take a break and pause—Selah. Use this moment to be still. Breathe deeply. Allow your lungs to fill with fresh air, and release. Repeat these steps until you feel at ease.

Resting, stretching, and massaging any tension in your body, emotions, and mind are more actions to put yourself at ease. Whichever ease method you choose, allow the essence of you to refill in your body as you cater to your needs. Be still and gauge how you feel at this very moment. Work to remember the focused feeling of centering yourself in stillness.

Day-to-day activities distract us from being centered at 100% ourselves. Every taxing moment slowly drains us. It is important to find grounding techniques that help you maintain or return to your optimal self. These grounding techniques create a peace anchor in you that helps you navigate through our chaotic world.

A few months ago, I was fully motivated to stay on schedule with the blog and vlog posts. However, I got sick for a whole week and had to take time off from work. I was at home, resting in bed, wanting to work on getting my message to you. However, God told me to lay down and rest. It was a struggle, because the free time that I had been asking God for I now had, but He wanted me to rest. For a week, I chose to obey and rest as He said. In my stillness, I discovered that God’s plans are greater than my own. His ways are higher than my ways. That He knows my resting time is in preparation for upcoming battles. I remembered David’s Psalm 23, "He maketh me lie down in green pastures" (Psalm 23:2), and I started to rest easy, snuggling with God as He healed my body.

Guard Your Peace

The world's chaotic energy is easy to absorb if you are not anchored to the peace of God. If you do not carry His peace within your heart, chaos, anger, sadness, jealousy, and lust can take over the terrain of your heart and mind. When any emotion dwells as a ruler over you, it compels you to relinquish your control. You can easily find yourself lost in feelings of frustration.

Keep your peace by refusing to allow every interaction to throw off your blissful groove. In life, we consistently face various challenging interactions: choose peace, and your response will not miss a beat. This is the same peace Paul described that surpasses all understanding, guarding our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6-7).

Choosing that peace doesn't happen automatically — it's a decision your spirit has to make in the moment your flesh wants to respond with animosity. The next time you feel yourself about to explode or implode, pause. Refocus on three things: your breathing, your thoughts, and the task in front of you. Let that pause bring you back to what actually matters in that moment — not being right, but staying rooted in God's peace.

What would this look like in a real-world scenario?

A car pulls out in front of you as you are flying above the speed limit. Choice A) You can choose to blare on your horn and curse them out for a mile or two. Or Choice B) You can choose to thank God for protecting you with the nudging of the Holy Spirit to your intuition, alerting you to slow down before the car ever pulls out.

The above scenario truly happened to me. I knew God kept me from an accident because I heard the Holy Spirit warn me that the car would pull out in front of me, even though I was already above the speed limit and they were stopped at a stop sign. Thankfully, I obeyed the warning of the Holy Spirit and began to slow down. A few moments after I released my foot from the gas pedal, the car jumped out in front of me. Of course, the car slowly accelerated. The warning was right on time to slow my momentum and avoid a collision. Instead of cursing out the irresponsible driver, I chose to praise God with just as much fervor as I would have used with my road rage. This time I chose to rest in the keeping power of God and sent praises up to The Lord, because he did not have to warn me at all, but He did. 

Rest and Reset

Perhaps you know that the Holy Spirit is also pushing you to start or complete an assignment that God has for you. However, your untidy home is blocking your will to start. What would you choose in that moment?

• Do nothing, because it all feels overwhelming.
• Organize and clean your living area, so your burdens feel lighter. Or,
• Start on the assignment, because if you don't start today, you may never.

Whatever your choice is, release the sense of being overwhelmed. If you are stressed or feeling ill, make sure you rest. God made the Sabbath day holy, calling us to labor for six days and rest on the seventh, keeping it set apart for Him (Exodus 20:8-11). Start making one day a week your Sabbath—meaning you do no work and participate in holy activities. Just as importantly, monitor how you're feeling. If the assessment has rough results, see a doctor. You only live as well as you feel. At times it is okay to do nothing as you rest your body back to health. Just don't stay stuck in the resting stage.

When my living space feels overwhelming, I start with one section of the room at a time. Only once the section is completed, I will then move to the next. Little by little I can begin to see the transformation. As my living areas clear out, my mind feels clearer too—for God is a God of order, not confusion, and all things are meant to be done decently and in order (1 Corinthians 14:40).

Organizing Your Life

Just as clutter in your home can cloud your mind, clutter in your life can cloud your calling. Take inventory—not just of your rooms, but of your routines, relationships, and responsibilities. Is there a commitment draining you that God never asked you to carry? A habit taking up space that no longer serves who you're becoming? A grudge or worry you've been storing instead of releasing?

Approach this the same way you would a messy room: one section at a time.

• Assess: What is one area of your life—your schedule, your circle, your thought patterns—that feels cluttered right now?
• Reset: What is one small, honest step you can take this week to clear it, even slightly?
• Do your best: Give yourself permission to make progress, not perfection.

You don't have to overhaul your entire life in a day. Just as a single organized shelf can make a whole room feel lighter, a single reset in your life—a boundary set, a habit adjusted, a prayer finally prayed—can make your whole spirit feel lighter too. It is okay to rest. It is okay to reset the mess. It is okay to simply do your best today.

Your Assignment

Now that you have shown God gratitude for rest and for clear living spaces, show Him gratitude for your time as well. In the first Frame of Providence blog post, you learned that the insistent natural ability you have — the thing that keeps tugging at you no matter how many times you set it aside — is your calling. There is an assignment with your name on it that only you can complete, so take time to make progress toward accomplishing your goal(s) to make God proud. Whether it is cleaning, organizing, reading to children, caring for animals, or simply greeting a neighbor, make a good attempt at it. Live your life righteously and diligently. Take progress in stride. It helps to break the tasks down into Can Do steps—meaning, "What can I do today?", then celebrate your achievements.

The Can Do steps I took toward my destiny is setting studio time up and attending sessions. Another Can Do step I took towards building this blog was setting up the website to display artwork with a message. My upcoming Can Do step is staying on schedule with posting the blog/vlog.

Rest in His Wings

The life God wants you to live is light and easy. In your own power, it may seem impossible, but walk with the Lord in every step of your journey, and you will feel the weight lift with every step you take alongside Him. (Warning: the moment you believe you no longer need to walk with or consult God is the exact moment that lightness begins to fade. Life will still have its challenges, but God is there to carry you when you feel like you cannot go on.)

In the times of struggle, chaos, danger, and uncertainty, rest easy in the wings of the Lord: "He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge" (Psalm 91:4). In His wings you will find compassion. In His wings you will find peace. In His wings you will find rest.

Everything that once seemed inconceivable or difficult will suddenly make perfect sense. Continuously pray to God to help and guide you, and you will see every step fall into place.

Even when you feel like you have lost all hope, remember the writer of Lamentations, who once said his splendor was gone and all his hope in the Lord had vanished (Lamentations 3:17-18) — and yet, in the very next breath, called to mind God's unfailing compassion, new every morning, and chose to wait quietly on Him (Lamentations 3:22-26). That same shift is available to you: from despair to remembrance, from remembrance to hope.

The Lord our God knows what is ahead, and He knows whether we are ready to move forward. No matter what is going on in your life, rest easy while He is preparing you. Rest easy in His mercy and grace, new every morning. Stay committed to seeking God so nothing will deter you from living as He directs. Everything that seems chaotic, depressing, or shameful cannot compare to the life God has for you. Trust Him to see you through it. This too shall pass, but what remains the same is God's goodness. Believe you will see and live in His goodness. Rest in the promise of a life that matters to God, not one measured by worldly terms.

Coming out of my people-pleasing season has been so chaotic. Not caring what other people thought or said about me felt weird and, albeit, kind of stressful. Instead of folding to the pressure of “hurting” someone’s feelings, I learned that God used these situations to lift my self-esteem higher. His wings let me know I have greater value than what I was operating from. Although the weird stress started turning into feelings of anxiety, I knew that I had to come into agreement with God or remain complacent in my low-value thoughts. The Holy Spirit reminded me that I have a circle of Prayer Warriors that will help me along the way to becoming new. Our joint prayers instantly fix my focus back on The Lord and the anxiety melts away as I know God is with me and will not forsake me. Yes, my latter days will be greater than my former days.

As you rest in His wings, remember He will deliver you into victory. Dwell on His power, not the chaos you're experiencing.

Give yourself the grace you need to assess, rest, reset the mess, and do your best. Now you can complete the assignment God gave you. Be still and rest; remain on the path God has set before you.

Rest Easy, friend. Every mess you reset, every peace you choose, every small step you take today is already held in His hands. You don't have to carry what He never asked you to carry. So breathe. Let it go. Rest Easy — your destiny is still on schedule, and so are you.