31 Oct Devotional Thought – Rest And Revelation
“Then he went up from there to Beersheba. And the LORD appeared to him the same night…” Genesis 26:23-24
Moses says that Isaac went up from the Valley of Gerar to Beersheba, and it was on that very first night that the Lord appeared to him with a wonderful revelation of future blessing. Was this an accident? Was the timing of this divine appearance simply coincidence? Could the Lord have appeared to him the night before he left the Valley of Gerar for Beersheba? No, the timing of the appearance of the Almighty to Isaac not only came when it should, but when it could. The reason is that this was the night that Isaac finally reached his place of rest. Before this night there had been a series of struggles, a succession of quarrels, over the possession of wells that he and his men had dug.
To be sure, they were just little wells, but little worries can become big worries – especially when they are allowed to accumulate in our lives. This was the pressure and stress that Isaac had been lying down with every night. In fact, even after the fussing and fighting was over, the place carried such negative association for him that he decided to leave. He began to look for a change of scenery – a place where nothing would remind him of his past troubles.
Isaac pitched his tent away from the place of his past struggle and strife, and on that very night the divine revelation came. God spoke to him when there was no longer a storm raging in his heart. You see, His voice demands the silence of our soul and so He could not speak to him while his mind was still consumed with the former struggle. It was only in the hush of that still, quiet rest that Isaac could hear the rustling of His Lord’s garments as He passed by and His still night became his starry night.
Have you ever stopped to really consider what the Lord meant when He said, “Be still, and know…”? I believe he means that oftentimes when our hearts are troubled and our minds are absorbed with our struggles that we can’t hear the answer to our prayers. But how many times, after the storm in our soul subsides and our minds find a place of rest do we find our prayer’s answer? Our heart received no response in the midst of its tempest, but when the storm ceased and the stillness fell and our hand quit banging on the door, when we began to be more concerned with the lives and hurts of others, then came the long awaited reply. Why? Why did it only come after the storm? Because it is only in the cool of the day that the voice of the Lord is heard walking in the midst of our garden.
Do you long to hear His voice? Then get to Beersheba. Get to the land of rest. Didn’t Jesus tell the multitude to “sit down” before He passed out the loaves and fishes? So too, then, must we sit down if we are to be fed by Him. We must rest if we are to receive the desire of our heart. The Lord does not give His revelations to hearts on the wing, so cease your flight, pause your migration, stop your wanderings. Still your heart’s beating for personal concern. Hide your storm of personal strife behind the altar of a common struggle, and on that very same night the Lord will appear to you. It is in the stillness of your soul’s silence that you will hear the everlasting music of another and even greater land.
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