I was staying in a nice, modern, two-bedroom resort in Orlando with my daughter, looking forward to the next two days we’d be spending together at Disney World. It was a trip I had booked in a moment’s notice because I just couldn’t take the mounting stress anymore.  I needed to get away from my day-to-day routine, relax, and clear my mind. I tend to be more of a thinker – I analyze things, so my mind is usually quite active and it was tiring me out. Now, I have not had panic attacks since I was a teenager, yet I had begun experiencing minor ones again. Being well aware that God is the only one who can help me, and no amount of vacationing will remove the root of the problem, I sought God for the answer as to why I was experiencing this overwhelming anxiety; I sought Him, and the help that only He can give. I began to feel the anxiety decrease to a manageable level, and found that I was being over medicated for hypothyroidism.

Back to the resort – when we walked into the room, the atmosphere was cold, and it was obvious there was a demonic presence operating in the room. I briefly wondered what had went on in there. I quickly prayed, taking authority over and binding whatever spirits were in there, and then my daughter and I sat down to play a game of cards. Suddenly we heard what sounded like gun shots next door; the atmosphere intensified. As I debated whether I should call the police or not, a second sound crackled through the walls. It was fireworks. Breathing a sigh of relief, I sat back down to the game. Those were the only two instances of fireworks we heard before we heard another strange, creepy sound. It sounded as if someone was knocking on our walls. Fear was trying everything it could think of to make us afraid. I decided to call home quick and have my husband join with us in prayer. During our phone call, the atmosphere cleared up, but the noise did not. It turned out we had noisy neighbors upstairs, and with the echoey rooms, we could hear every time they moved a piece of furniture or dropped something as small as a pin. At one point it sounded as if someone was tapping one finger on the ceiling (their floor) repeatedly.

I didn’t sleep well while there. The people above us refused to go to bed any earlier than 12:30 am, and it sounded as if they were moving furniture all day long. I commented to my daughter that it was as if there was a family of furniture movers stationed above us. I tried everything I could think of to get to sleep – even slapping a pillow over my head. In the Spring I will put a pillow over my head to drown out the abnormally loud cicadas, and it works, but for some reason it was not working to drown out the noise of the upstairs dwellers.

On the final night of our stay, I once again asked God to quiet the people upstairs, and I managed to fall asleep. Enter the dream of all dreams. I found myself in a room with a powerful woman of God. She held out her hands, and I grabbed ahold, not fully realizing what I was doing – I thought she had wanted to hold hands to pray, but she was stretching out her hands to the Lord. Two other women came around and we all began to pray in the Spirit. All of a sudden, I felt a strong electrical current flow through the woman of God to me. I felt it coursing through my body and knew I was about to go down (slain in the Spirit). I felt a deep sleep come over me like I had never felt before, and I saw myself falling back as if in slow motion, but I was not afraid. I felt like not only was I falling in the natural, but that I had been falling in the spiritual as well. I prayed quick, “God save me,” and then I heard Him say, “Rest.” I’m used to people having something really profound happen to them when they go down in the Spirit, so I was expecting the Lord to say or do something really profound, however all He said was “Rest.” He proceeded to remind me that He had said this to me before, so I laid back and rested in His presence.

This dream showed me a few things. First off, it showed me that I had felt like I was in a free fall, but it was more like a trust fall (where you purposely fall backward, trusting the person behind you to catch you). I had been feeling as if I was falling both in the natural and in the spiritual, and I was calling out to God to save me. Naturally, I had been overmedicated, resulting in major anxiety, which in turn resulted in rapid weight gain. Thankfully the Lord is in the process of restoring my thyroid and weaning me off my medication, and I am having to walk through all the changes that entails, but that’s a whole other story. Spiritually, I’m in a strange place that I’ve never been before. It goes against “religion” and everything I’ve ever been taught, which has sent my mind into overdrive, but I know God’s in it, and it’s all part of fully entering into the rest He has for me. 

Second of all, through this dream, the Lord showed me that it’s important to declutter our “upstairs.” So many of our minds have been crazy active. It’s like having a group of furniture movers up there moving things around continually, trying to figure out how to arrange everything, and attempting to figure out which pieces go together and which ones don’t. At the same time, new pieces of information are constantly being added, creating more clutter, and more noise. The noise distracts us and causes us to be continually focused on the noise and our upstairs disaster, preventing us from entering into rest.

Allow me to give you a quick recap on what rest is. Rest is not the absence of activity, rather it is trusting in the finished works of Jesus. It’s trusting that God will do what He said He will do, and He will bring you through to the end. It’s trusting that His plans for you are good, and they are plans to prosper you and not to harm you. He will catch you. You no longer have to strive to make things happen on your own. In my case, I need to trust that God has me in this unique position that I’m in for a reason, stop fighting against it, and trust that He is leading me to the next open door, or to the next step that I am to take. Though I’m in an unfamiliar place, and it is uncomfortable at times, I will trust He knows what He’s doing, and rest in that.

Silencing the noise is important, but there are right ways and wrong ways to deal with the noise. For instance, trying to drown out all the noise by putting a pillow over your head is not going to work. The noise is still there – you haven’t dealt with it. Shouting at all the noise, simply wishing it would go away, trying to escape it by running away, and throwing things out only to replace it with more of the same thing isn’t going to work.  Some appropriate ways of dealing with all the noise include cutting some voices out of your life such as news articles and programs, television, certain friends, social media, and even an over abundance of ministry teachings. Yes, I said that. 2 Timothy 4:3 says,

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.”

 An accumulation of teachers. I have seen this with my own eyes; people listening to one person right after the other, watching one YouTube video after the other, because they’ve found numerous “teachers” who are saying the very things they want to hear, and these same people never bother to search the Scriptures and examine what they’re filling their minds with, to see if it’s actually Truth.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Philippians 4:8

We stuff our minds with all these different things, things that are contrary to Philippians 4:8, and then we wonder why we are confused, anxious, and going off the rails. The only real way to drown out all the noise is to get into the Word of God. It’s imperative we find out what constitutes as honorable thoughts, lovely thoughts, excellent thoughts, etc. and this comes through time spent in the Word and with the Word Himself, Jesus.

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Romans 10:17

Filling our minds and hearts with the Word of God will push out all the other junk we’ve accumulated over time. Our minds will begin to clear up and we’ll be able to perceive and receive the directions Holy Spirit is giving us. I don’t like to say our minds will clear up, enabling us to hear the Holy Spirit because we don’t “hear” Him with our natural minds. I am using perceive here because I think that is a better term which more accurately defines how we hear in the Spirit.

With all that said, I encourage you to not just accept all the noise going on in your mind. I encourage you to “take every thought captive to obey Christ,” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Throw out some furniture (thoughts, vain imaginations, etc.) and do a little house cleaning.  Resting in the Lord not only saves your sanity, it will restore your body as well. A mind at rest gives your body the opportunity to heal from the physical ailments, the tiredness, the lethargy, etc. that came as a direct result of increased amounts of anxiety.

Jesus said in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

 “Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all,” (2 Thessalonians 3:16).