I come from a long line of workaholic women.
Strong women. Capable women. Women who carry responsibility without complaint. Women who build, fix, organize, lead, and endure. Rest was a reward — not a rhythm.
So when God interrupts my normal, my first instinct is not surrender — it’s strategy.
Not pause — but productivity.
But surprisingly, last week my shepherd, Ps Abhilash Varghese, asked me to take a break and just rest. An unfamiliar zone, it was. I listened. The break did not just rejuvenate me but also nourished me in the spirit. And to top it, the week ended with a fitting Sunday sermon by Ps Abhilash on what it means to go from wilderness to glory. The way God speaks through His appointed ones is so amazing.
In the Book of Exodus 3, Moses was not building anything remarkable when God called him. He was tending sheep. Ordinary work. Routine life. Then came the burning bush.
The call of God interrupted his normal.
And that’s the part many of us resist.
For those of us wired to produce, wilderness feels unproductive. It feels like delay. But wilderness is not punishment — it is preparation.
Before Moses stood before Pharaoh, he stood before God.
Exodus 3:5 – “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
God had to shift Moses from activity to awareness. From doing to being.
Sometimes God interrupts our work not because we are wrong — but because we are ready for more.
The wilderness retrains identity.
It shifts us from slave mentality to sonship.
From striving to surrender.
Coming from generations of women who never stop, surrender feels unnatural.
But we cannot walk with God based on emotion, momentum, or productivity. The key is submission.
Moses tried to resist.
Exodus 4:10–12 – “I am slow of speech…”
The Lord said, “Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”
Moses focused on his limitation. God focused on His sufficiency.
For those of us who are used to carrying everything, this is humbling:
God does not need our perfection. He wants our obedience.
The transformation was not in Moses’ skill, but in his surrender.
There is a difference between being busy and being hungry.
Spiritual decline begins when hunger fades and productivity replaces intimacy.
When Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see,” he chose curiosity over routine. That one decision shifted history.
Later, his prayer was bold:
Exodus 33:18 – “Show me Your glory.”
That is not a productive prayer.
It is a hungry one.
Moses pitched a Tent of Meeting outside the camp. A consistent place of encounter.
For someone like me — raised among strong, working women — building a secret place requires intentional slowing down. It requires choosing presence over performance.
But what we build privately shapes what we carry publicly.
Private surrender produces public authority.
| Consider This If you, like me, come from a lineage of strength and nonstop work, ask yourself: Is your busyness protecting you from surrender? Is God interrupting you — not to weaken you — but to deepen you? Three to-dos: Schedule surrender. Don’t wait until you are exhausted to seek God. Create daily space to turn aside. Build your tent of meeting. Shift from performance to presence. You are not valuable because of what you produce. Sit with God without an agenda. Let hunger replace hustle. Obey even when it slows you down. Move from selective obedience to surrendered obedience. Trust that God can accomplish more through submission than through striving. |
