It has occurred to me that after about 7 years of writing and blogging thousands of thoughts and reflections, I have recently become very quiet indeed, especially this past year. No doubt it is because 2011 was for many, including myself, a particularly tough year. It has its struggles, its challenges and most painfully, its disappointments. But I rather feel that the true reason for my lack of blogging was that each of those things create within us an unwanted place of vulnerability that is most raw and we strive to keep most hidden and definitely not write about. It is the vulnerability of uncertainty.

I could speak about Rob Bell's incredibly empowering approach to the place of suffering and hardship and the creativity that blossoms from it, maybe someday soon I shall. I could quickly turn and recognise that this past year has in fact been so blessed and full of incredible provision and God's faithfulness that to even acknowledge minor troubles is fruitless and somehow dishonouring. I could even quote Job and recognise with fear and trembling that God is all powerful and I should neither question Him nor recognise "struggles" with communing with Him through these times.

I am going to do none of those. There is only one thing I think I can do in response to this past year and the year ahead (of which I have NO IDEA what it holds) and that is...

To simply begin to write again and write the truth. Whatever that may be.

Today the truth is that it feels ironic that someone who is beginning a house of prayer finds sitting with the Lord in the quiet place sometimes so hard.

This past year has rendered my devotional life tried at best. Scurrying from one thing to another, trying to juggle five jobs and international travel every month or two as well as numerous house moves have all given rise to very viable excuses to why my body (especially my brain) has no time to be truly quiet and rested.

So that is where this years blogs are going to begin. I am truly passionate about one question at this moment, it is a question I have been pursuing since the Romania dream began and it is one that I will hot foot after for years to come.

"What does a life of rest look like within the context of full time ministry/ missions (or work for that matter?)?"

Instead of being hung up on rest looking like sleep and soaking and hours of meditation or scripture study or any other number of things, my question is far more about a rest lifestyle. We are meant to ask WWJD right? Look at what He modelled and showed us and emulate it?

Well, Jesus chose to rest, all the time in fact. He travelled and spoke and healed and preached for hours and days and weeks. Yet, in places where yet another incredible miracle story could have been told, the gospels again and again repeat to us, demonstrate what Jesus was doing during His life of ministry:

And in the morning, long before daylight, He got up and went out to a deserted place, and there He prayed.Mark 1:35

And after He had taken leave of them, He went off into the hills to pray.Mark 6:46

But He Himself withdrew [in retirement] to the wilderness (desert) and prayed. Luke 5:16

Now in those days it occurred that He went up into a mountain to pray, and spent the whole night in prayer to God.Luke 6:12

He took Himself away, He rested, He made time. When things seemed the most ideal, opportune, needy etc, He was getting into a boat, going up a mountainside, hiding (unsuccessfully) in a house. I am in no way saying that one trumps the other, that we should sacrifice our love for the poor to be reclusive in search of a monastic prayer life, in fact Jesus' life and message is quite the opposite. What I am saying is that the pendulum has swung too far the other way, we have determined our lives and our schedules by the things we need to do rather than by His priorities. We are being driven by the wrong thing.

I have no idea what true rest in the midst of great suffering, need, uncertainty, financial crisis, hundreds of children, war zones and disasters could possibly look like, practically, tangibly. I don't know within those moments how to continue to truly sit and have regular dedicated time with Him without my mind wandering a million places or ending up praying for a list of things worrying me. All I know is that discovering that answer means that we need to be honest first. If all the focused attention I manage today is a moment with Him, if we just catch a glance of each other…I know that His promise remains…

"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.]" - Matthew 11:28

Jesus, teach me how to rest so that as I walk into this broken, work driven, desperate world, I will be full of enough of your rest and peace that others lives will be transformed and brought to you, the only one with the answer. Amen.