You have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Colossians 3:9-10.

Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30.

I loved this today in You Are The Beloved by Henri Nouwen: “Jesus’ response to our worry-filled lives is quite different. He asks us to shift the point of gravity, to relocate the center of our attention, to change our priorities. Jesus wants us to move from the “many things” to the “one necessary thing”. It is important for us to realize that Jesus in no way wants us to leave our many-faceted world. Rather, He wants us to live in it, but firmly rooted in the center of all things. Jesus does not speak about a change of activities, a change of contacts, or even a change of pace. He speaks about a change of heart. This change of heart makes everything different, even while everything appears to remain the same. This is the meaning of “Set your hearts on His kingdom first…and all these other things will be given you as well.” What counts is where our hearts are. When we worry, we have our hearts in the wrong place. Jesus asks us to move our hearts to the center, where all other things fall into place.”

In our next chapter, Ezekiel 6, so that they will know that God is the Lord, Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit, speaks against the high places where they worshipped idols in practices that were detestable and led to their destruction. The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, set your face against the mountains of Israel; prophesy against them and say: ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Sovereign Lord. This is what the Sovereign Lord says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys: I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places. Your altars will be demolished and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will slay your people in front of their idols. I will lay the dead bodies of the Israelites in front of their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars. Wherever you live, the towns will be laid waste and the high places demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and devastated, your idols smashed and ruined, your incense altars broken down, and what you have made wiped out. Your people will fall slain among you, and you will know that I am the Lord.’” v. 1-7. Why? “Because of all the wicked and detestable practices of the people of Israel…when their people lie slain among their idols around their altars, on every high hill and on all the mountaintops, under every spreading tree and every leafy oak – places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols.” v. 11, 13-14. In essence, everywhere! Idols were worshipped everywhere. There was nowhere left for the worship of God. He had been replaced. What about today? Do we leave room for God to speak to our spirits? Or do we worship idols made of flesh, or currency, or ideologies, or whatever serves to crowd Creator God out of our lives? How can we know that God is the Sovereign Lord if we don’t know Him? God intervened dramatically and decisively in Scripture. How can we think that won’t be needed again?

And the most dramatic and decisive movement of Creator God was when He became one of us. And He was gentle and humble in heart and they couldn’t understand that, either. Why? Because they didn’t leave room for God to be God. “Then you will know that I AM the Lord” becomes real when we turn to Him. Turn. He’s here. Always! And with Him helping us, we begin to understand and rejoice that He is the Lord and not anyone or anything else in all creation. And it is to Him that we draw near for understanding so needed as we live in a world darkened by its crowding out of its Creator. The creation knows! You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the Lord’s renown, for an everlasting sign, that will endure forever. Isaiah 55:12-13. Then you will know that I AM the Lord!