I have learned to take a break from work.

This not only includes taking a break from my “9 to 5” job but also a break from the work I do to teach on Sundays for Spiritmuv.  I was talking to a colleague who was surprised by my enthusiasm about having some time off from church as well as work and my anticipation of well-deserved downtime in order to let go and simply let God work.

True prayer warriors do pray without ceasing.  But we don’t need a pew, or a pulpit, or even an altar.  We bathe in prayer and wake up in its fresh anointing.  Prayers invite us to rest while God does the work that we are appointed to do.  Prayers want our lives to be easy, relaxing, joyful, and stress-free.  If we listen to them, our prayers are actually begging us to take off time for ourselves.  Prayers want us to slow down while they give us the answers we seek.  Prayers insist on our freedom from judgment, so that we can wear the world as a loose garment. “I got this,” they say.  “I knew what you wanted before you ever asked.”  They lift us above the world of affliction and appearances of doubt, saying  “I go before you and find ways to make the crooked paths straight.”

God’s entire assembly line is given this divine latitude: to rest from labor, while God does the work that we are appointed to do. We must rest, in order to hear the divine.  God summons us to work but also to take a break.  Sometimes, we have to allow our body temples to sleep late, to skip exercise, to rise slowly, to bathe leisurely, to chew carefully, and to receive the reward of simply being.

Jesus said “[t]he harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” (Matthew 9:37)  But Jesus was not referring to physical labor, he was referring to centering in the consciousness of God.  This type of work is not work in the world.  The harvest is the grace of God – always giving absolute good.  But there are so few of us who are ready to receive it.

Jesus says “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”  (John 6:27)  What good is it to be so busy doing that we forget the importance of being.  We see this in the story of Mary and Martha, when Martha complains about Mary.  “She came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’”  (Luke 10:40)  But Jesus did not take issue with Mary because she was centered in the Spirit of God.  Mary was present to the moment of experiencing the joy of being, rather than worried about whether the table was properly set.  We work for food that spoils when we limit ourselves to only what needs to be done in the material realm and fail to embrace the power of staying centered in God’s grace.

In God, the work is done.  We are always at our right time and appointed place.  The words that we need to speak roll off our tongues.  The papers that we need to write, or collect, or organize fall from the heavens.  The book falls off the shelf.  We turn to the right page.  The task that was so important no longer becomes relevant.  We don’t worry about what others think because it is none of our business.  Our prayers work, even we are not, without ceasing.

“[I]n all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose . . . . What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”  (Romans 8:28, 31)

No matter what our job, be it farmer or plumber, or fireman or president, or dentist or actress or lawyer or sanitation worker, or teacher, or doctor, or nurse, our prayers all penetrate the invisible ethers of God’s all-knowing supply and bless us without ceasing.  We each have our life’s purpose as our calling, but our greater calling is to realize our oneness with God – a God that is the Spirit of grace.

Grace is not “based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.” (Romans 11:6)  Grace works without condition or cause or circumstance.  Grace is the catalyst that fuels the answers to all that is asked, that opens every door upon which our soul knocks, that finds all that our hearts seek.

This is our prayer for you – regardless of your occupation – that you realize the salvation of God’s grace as the constant presence of miracles pouring into and shaping out of the love, which is everywhere present.  Our prayers pour peace into every step that you take.  Our prayers cover you in a sacred space of holy anointing that has no fear or shame, or worry or doubt – a space where you can take the limits off and experience the power of a life that knows miracles form with everything your fingertips touch and sprout from every crack and crevice of the universe as your lasting success.

No matter what you want – whether you believe you deserve it or not – know that victory is the prayer that wakes you up each morning to restore you.  Manna is the prayer that fills each moment to bless you.  Miracles are the prayers that reach out of the confines of time and space and through the narrowness of appearances to restore you.  Truth is the prayer that never stops making a way out of no way to give you exactly what you need, when you need it.

We are always looking for labor, but let us also be courageous enough to rest.  Let us breathe in the breath of God — not as exasperation but as the wonderful joy of simply being.  Let us slow down long enough to appreciate each step that we have taken up the mountain of faith, to honor those who have aided us in the climb, and to give thanks for the divine wholeness out of which we work . . . no, out of which we co-create – with boldness, courage and conviction.