12 August 2020

Ok I’m guilty. Since Covid-19 I have been watching, scrolling way too much through news reports, media reporting on the world, celebrity input(even if it is just Jennifer Garner cooking at home!)

Now sometimes it is no problem to sit and have some leisure watching tik tok funny videos, watching “how to cooking shows,” watching ……. But every day for quite a chunk of my time to be truthful is just a waste of my time.

I’m wondering why I feel exhausted, actually in a state of exhaustion most days. My mind is numb, fried even. I have even had some headaches that seem to come upon me every night. What is happening?

So after checking my eyesight, getting a health check. I worked out why.

There is sooooooo much information available right now in our world with technology. Straight away we all saw the explosion that happened in Beirut. I bet like me you even watched it a few times. The world news is instantaneously there, available to watch and listen to.

When you go out to dinner (or rather should I say if you can go out to dinner) watch people at their tables. Who is on their portable computer aka mobile phone? Scrolling, reading, NOT relating to the other family members at the table. We are losing our ability to focus and pay attention longer than a few minutes. Many of us are living at the depth of the text, the swipe, the like.

I’m guilty at times. Be honest so are you.

But our brains, our intellect is getting overloaded with so much information.

We humanly are made up of spirit, intellect or mind, soul, body, emotions. We have a need for human connection and spiritual connection, but this surface stuff is not generally going deep enough. It is taking up so much of my time on the surface but is it restoring my soul? Refreshing my mind? Reenergising me on the whole?

Oh I love to watch funny videos just like most people, and these are often the refreshment I need but when is it too much? Am I addicted to social media? Am I wasting too much of my time?

When am I allowing God to call me to go deeper with Him? When am I “being still” and allowing myself to be refreshed from the “waters of Life that flow from the One and Only”?

Psalm 42:1 states

As a deer pants longingly for the water brooks, so my soul pants longingly for you O God.

Am I going to bed at the end of the day still “thirsty”? Am I dehydrated? Not feeling refreshed? Am I hydrating the soul?

My soul (my life, my inner self) thirsts for God…

Psalm 42:2

Do I go to bed not allowing “Deep calls to deep” as stated in verse 7 of Psalm 42?

Deep calls to deep at the thundering sound of your waterfalls, All your breakers and your waves have rolled over me.

Psalm 42:7

Could I be drowning with the waves breaking over me, dumping me onto the sand, the deep trials of life coming at me, wave after wave??? I’m swept away with sorrow and despair or could the Psalmists soul be calling out from a place of profound need?

Calling out for the greatness of God to come into our life. To our everyday, covid-avoiding, stressful, onto the next thing on the calendar, life?

A deep need calls for a deep remedy.

The deep of man’s need (if we let us go there) calls to the deep of God’s fullness and the deep of God’s fullness calls to our need.

Our emptiness thirsts for his complete fullness.

Our emptiness thirsts for his deep mercy.

Only HIS Deep can reach our deep.

Only then will I truly be restored.

So I have decided more to “BE STILL AND KNOW GOD.”

Even if no words are exchanged. My deep calls to HIS deep and my soul comes away satisfied.

My human need is great, but His riches are greater.

Our wisdom is finite but His knowledge and judgements are unsearchable. (Romans 11:33-34.)

God’s thoughts are deeper than mine. (Psalm 92:5)

His love is as deep as his immense heart. (Ephesians 3:18)

From the depths of the Psalmist despair, he found help in the depth of God’s goodness.

Why are you in despair oh my soul?

WHY HAVE YOU BECOME RESTLESS AND DISQUIETED WITHIN ME?—- (That’s me, That’s how I was feeling.)

Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him.

The Help of my countenance and my God.

Psalm 42:11

I will praise Him once again for he has helped me. I now know why I was ailing. I needed my deep longings, my deep needs, my deep joys, my deep sorrows to call to the deepness of God.

May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’

Love

Rosemary

Every week groups of ladies meet together to chat about the things I raise in my weekly blog post and to chat about life in general. We call these ‘Heart Connect’ groups. If you would like more information please click HERE.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Do you spend too much time distracted on social media or distracted in another way?

Are you being still before God?

Deep calls to deep. Are you going deeper with God? What is stopping you?