Posted on by thornstocrowns

Find your rest: Rest beyond sleep

While putting the effort into finding rest, I believe that the ultimate rest comes from God

Hello crowned Royals! I hope everyone of you are doing well in midst of all panic and fear around the world concerning the Corona virus. While all this is going on, God gave me this reminder and I want to share it with you just in case you are fearful right now. He said be still and know that he is God! I thought that was a great reminder for me as well because just a couple days ago I was faced with fear. This week I thought of writing on rest because a lot of us including myself can use some of it. Resting is an essential God given crown that most of us only relate to sleep, but I hope with this blog you look at rest beyond sleep. While sleep is important and necessary, we also need to know that there is rest beyond sleep. How do we find rest in the midst of what sometimes feels like a never ending race?

Race and Pace

Have you ever competed in a race or observed another person compete in a race? Notice how pace is dependent on the distance of any type of race? Running is competitive and pace matters because it is what determines the win. A runner in a short distance race requires fast pace while a marathon runner is better off keeping a steady pace. There is a reason why these different racers decide the pace for their race and it is evident that one compared to the other requires a regulated pace because of the distance. I always compare our lives to a marathon runner because of the long distance we have to take in order to get to the place of rest. The unfortunate thing is that most of us prefer to keep a fast pace for a long distance race and we get frustrated when we are unable to find rest. I say so because there were times I wanted to maintain a fast pace for what requires a regulated pace. I did it in school, relationships, career growth and the list goes on. Have you ever experienced that too? I bet you have! And I totally understand. Once we wake up every morning it is almost like we already begin to compete with the hours of the day and as if that is not enough we compete with so much more. Think about all the competing thoughts in your mind and your competitive nature towards others that often leaves you restless and missing out on what could be a restful life. I know it is a lot, but many of us do it even without consciously knowing what is going on. I hope we begin to regulate our pace and start to find rest.

Finding your rest beyond sleep

For someone that appreciates physical sleep, I have also found such great importance in mental rest. When you find your mental rest, getting enough physical rest is a walk in the park. Once you are able to bring your unrest to God, regulate your pace and know when and when not to react to situations that would take away your rest, you will be able to find your rest. Not an easy task if you ask me, but by the grace of God and determination to get rest you found some. If I found rest in all my restless days, so can you! But you would have to want it bad enough to be able to find it. Here is how you do it;

  • Have an honest conversation with yourself about what pace you are currently maitaining. Is it fast? or regulated? or no pace at all?
  • Think of the past, current, future situations in your own life that take away your rest. (write them down)
  • Bring all these situations before God because he is the God that gives your rest.
  • Identify people that take away your rest.
  • Maintain your distance from people that take away your rest, but still love them. (side note: people pleasing is not cool. especially at the expense of your rest)
  • Remind yourself that life is not a competition, mind your own and keep your pace. (manage your time well on social media)

There are several ways one can find rest, the ones listed are what worked for me in finding my rest. While putting the effort into finding rest, I believe that the ultimate rest comes from God. God gives you rest once you bring it before him in confidence. There are many situations, thoughts and people that can easily take away rest or give us a reason to fast pace, but when God is involved he brings rest and regulates our pace. It is a beautiful thing! Don’t believe me? Here is some scripture for you;

31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

Mark 6:31 (NIV)

I want to end this blog with my thought on the bible verse above. While many of us are coming and going, God calls out to a quiet place with him to find our rest. Our rest is found in him and so our efforts to finding rest should lean towards him. The way we pace ourselves and eventually find our rest is determined by God’s involvement. The beautiful thing with God’s rest is that even when situations around you can easily take away your rest, once you go with him to a quiet place, he gives your rest. Do your part first and may your soul find rest in Christ alone! It is time to take your rightful place. It is time to trade thorns for crowns.

Much Love,

Xholiwe

Posted on by thornstocrowns · 2 Comments

Problem Solving: Do you have the right tools?

what happens when we are uncomfortable and the discomfort is coming from an unresolved problem? we immediately want to fix it. But are we using the right tools? -Xholiwe

Hello crowned Royals! I hope you all are doing great! I am beyond great because my favorite season is upon us. It is fall season and I couldn’t be more excited about this change. I could talk about fall all day long, but I would we have more pressing matters I would like to share with you in this blog. I was recently thinking about problem solving in a much different way than I usually do. While thinking about problem solving, what came to my mind was the memory of me as a little girl and how I always wanted to fix broken things in our little apartment. I did that with the sense that I did not want my mother to incur another expense over a broken door handle, clogged bath tub or leaking tap. So I usually would take matters into my own hands and use the wrong tools. The tools I used were either ineffective to solve the problem or too complicated to solve a simple problem. Because of using the wrong tools, I did not solve the problem, but rather made it worse in most cases. Fortunately, that did not make me give up my desire to help take the burden off my mom incurring repair expenses. So I started to get curious of how I could fix stuff around the house and what tool would be effective and not complicated. So I would closely observe what tools the professional repairer would use. I started to pay close attention to what the professionals did to solve the problem and I slowly became better. Eventually, I was changing door knobs, unclogging bathtubs and fixing leaking taps. I did that for some time and mastered ways to solve small house repairs that now that I live on my own, I can get the job done! I gave you this entire example, just so that we can connect my example to how most of us solve our life problems. Can we talk about how many of use continue to use the wrong tools to solve our life problems?

This blog is for all the problem solvers, which I think is all of us. We are constantly trying to fix stuff because we are wired for comfort. So what happens when we are uncomfortable and the discomfort is coming from an unresolved problem is that we immediately want to fix it. We want to fix it as soon as possible so we can be comfortable again, but unfortunately certain problems do not get resolved as quickly as we imagined. We then get frustrated from the problem, which often times worsens the problem. We often worsen our problems because of our lack of understanding on how best to address it and what would effectively solve the problem. If we were honest with ourselves, we would be able to admit that most of us are not the best problem solvers. We have been doing it wrong or have not been effective and now we deal with the same problem over and over again. So how do we change that?

Change starts to happen when we acknowledge that there is a problem. While most of us can’t compare our life problems to me fixing door knobs at 8 years old and getting good at it, we solve of our life problems in a similar way. We mess up at first, worsen the problem, learn and lastly we practice then get good. The question is do we eventually get good at it? Funny thing about problems is that you just can not pretend like there are not there and hope they disappear. It takes a little more than just wishing on stars. Solving problems comes from experience and since experience is the best teacher it may be time for you to jot things down. Ask yourself what did you do last time that did not solve the problem, but made it worse. This is not rocket science, from what you learned from your experience, do you do things differently? Do you now know how to manage your finances? Do you know how to handle your emotions? Do you now know how to speak your mind in a non-toxic manner? There are many more questions I could ask, but based off these questions, there has to be something done differently for someones response to be positive and change.

It all starts in the mind, the mind is a very powerful tool that God gave us, but if it is used ineffectively to solve problems it benefit us nothing. There is a reason why God asks of us to renew our minds (Romans 12:2). Why should we renew our minds? Because some of our minds may have learned the wrong ways to solve problems effectively. In some cases it is was not even our fault, but it is what we saw the family do and so our minds only know of that way of solving problems. While all of us have minds, not all of us have the mindset to solve problems effectively. It is unfortunate to see the right tool being wrongly used. Just imagine what the world would look like if we had more people solving their problems with a right mindset.

Another tool we use wrongly and ineffectively is people. We can learn a thing or two from people. I learned how to fix things around the house from observation. There are people in your life you should be observing that will help you solve problems the right way. You can also observe people that dance around their problems so that you make the choice not to do so because you see the consequence of not solving problems effectively. Many of us fail to realize who we should be learning from on how to solve problems effectively because again the mindset might have to unlearn some things so it can learn new things through other people. Who are you learning from? Are they the right tool?

As we get our mindset right and learn a thing or two through other about solving problems, we have to get Jesus on this journey! We can’t effectively solve our problems without getting God involved. Why do I say this? Well, a couple of times in my own life I tried to solve the problem without God’s help and let us just say I paid for it in tears. God has a way of solving problems that no other person can. It is solid, effective and all the way right when you God is part of your problem solving. He is a God that is bigger than our problems! There is nothing he can not do!

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

Psalm 121 v 1-2 (KJV)

Where does your help come from? is it from the temporary tools the world has to offer? You can go on as many spa dates and still not deal with half the problems that has been a thorn in your life. Who are you looking to? If it is not to God, you might be dealing with that problem for what will seem like forever. Let me just tell you that problem solving with God involved, the right mindset and learning from the right people will change your life! Guaranteed that problems will come, but you will be working with the right tools! You might have some work to do if you have been using the wrong and ineffective tools to solve your problems. But it is never to late to work on that mindset, learn from the right people and most importantly to get God involved. It is time to take your rightful place! It is time to trade thorns for crowns!

Much love!

Xholiwe