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“Be Still and know that I am God.” Psalms 46:10.

This verse has helped me to think about who God is and all that He has done for me, including making me, loving me, helping me, and even being with me! For today, we are going to move our bodies while exercising our brains.

We are going to act out the first letter of each word in the verse. So when you say the first word, which is BE you will try and make a ‘B’ with your body. The next word is STILL, so when we say still, we will make an ‘S’ with our body or hands. For AND you will make an ‘A’, for KNOW you will make a ‘K’, for THAT you will make a ‘T’, for I we will make an ‘I’, for AM you will make another ‘A’, and for GOD you will make a ‘G’! Don’t forget about PSALM 46:10, for that one, we will make the letter ‘P’ because Psalms starts with a P!

As you figure out your poses for each word, try and recite the verse faster and faster!

“Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”  Matthew 11:28

In the story of Naomi and Ruth, we hear of how much reward there is in having patience in our tiredness, and bringing it to God. Naomi, her husband and their two sons lived in Bethlehem. One day, the city was overcome with famine, and the family had to leave everything and move to another city called Moab. Roughly 10 years after moving, Naomi loses both her husband and sons. 

By this time, both of her sons had married, but only one of the women stayed with Naomi when she decided to return to Bethlehem, and that was Ruth. When the women return to Bethlehem, they are met with the family relative Boaz who lets Ruth take from his fields of barley. Think about that. Naomi left to escape poverty, lost her family, and returned to poverty. Ruth lost her husband, left her home, and is living in poverty with the only person she really knows. They must’ve been so tired. 

Then, Naomi proposes that Ruth marry Boaz. Boaz accepts and goes to the elders of the town for approval. Long story short, Ruth gives birth to a son and generations down the line, Jesus is born. Ruth didn’t research and create a perfect plan to execute, she instead trusted God and was obedient. Through this story, we learn that we are not promised an easy life because we follow Jesus, but we are promised that He will give us rest, and He will provide in the end.  Without Ruth and Naomi’s obedience, the family tree of Jesus would not exist. Without their willingness to lie down the burden of their circumstances and trust His peace, we wouldn’t see the beauty of God’s good and perfect plan.

Think of the Christmas story. A baby lying in a manger, the bright star that showed the world of the miracle that had just happened, the joy of Joseph and Mary, all of it. That story would not have happened without the obedience of Naomi and Ruth years before. 

What obstacles in your life are making you feel tired, drained, worried, or afraid? What would it look like for you to give them to God and trust His perfect plan? 

Take a moment to pray, and thank God for the difficult lessons that He has placed in your life, because they have allowed you to become stronger. Pray over the hardships you are facing right now, and ask Him to lift those burdens off of your shoulders and remove the pressure of striving to fix things one your own.

"Would you dissolve our striving into Your perfect peace?”

Matthew 11:28 (NIV) Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 

Striving is woven into the fabric of human experience. From our first breaths, we push, reach, and grasp. This innate drive propels us forward, fuels progress, and can lead to remarkable achievements. Yet, unchecked, it can also leave us exhausted, anxious, and caught in an endless cycle of "never enough."

The invitation to release our striving and surrender to God's peace is not a call to apathy or inaction. Rather, it's an invitation to a different way of being in the world - a gentle nudging to loosen our white-knuckled grip on control and open our hands to receive what God offers.

Imagine a river. When we're striving, we're like swimmers fighting against the current, expending enormous energy just to stay in place. Surrender is like turning to float on our backs, allowing the river to carry us. We're still on a journey, but now we move with a sense of ease, in harmony with a force greater than ourselves.

Living in a culture that often equates surrender with weakness, choosing to release our striving can feel vulnerable, even frightening. Yet, paradoxically, in this surrender we often find a strength we never knew we had - the strength that comes from being fully aligned with God's purposes for our lives. Advent provides a unique context for this surrender, offering a sacred space in time where the eternal breaks into the temporal. This season of waiting and anticipation mirrors our own spiritual journey, inviting us to pause and reflect on the profound mystery of the Incarnation.

As we remember the coming of Christ - God's ultimate act of stepping into our striving world - we're confronted with a radical reimagining of power and peace. The Almighty chose to enter human history not as a conquering king, but as a vulnerable infant. This divine paradox challenges our notions of strength and surrender, reminding us that true power often lies in vulnerability and that the path to peace may look different than we expect.

In Christ's coming, we see God's response to our human striving. Rather than demanding we ascend to Him, He descends to us. This act of divine humility reminds us that peace is not something we achieve through our own efforts, but something we receive as a gift. It's a grace freely given, not a reward earned through perfect performance or spiritual acrobatics.

Surrendering to this peace is a daily choice, a moment-by-moment decision to trust God rather than our own understanding. There will be times when we find ourselves slipping back into patterns of striving and control. In these moments, we're invited to gently release our grip once again and return to a posture of surrender. Our days should be defined by a continual re-centering, a returning again and again to the truth that we are held in love, that our worth is not dependent on our achievements, that God's grace is sufficient for us.

Take a moment to reread today’s Scripture passage and then spend some time reflecting on the following question:

Matthew 11:28 (NIV) Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 

• What might change in your life if you lived from a place of surrender to God's peace rather than constant striving?