You're Supposed to Live...

Bianca Barnard
Jul 20
4 min read

I recently had the opportunity to get away…

Or more honestly, I needed to take a real break…

So, I took some leave from work, and was just going to stay home, with nowhere to go and no pressure to get there. I genuinely love my apartment, so this didn't seem like a bad deal at all.

But, with the wise promptings of friends and family alike, and generous hearts, a way was made for me to visit a beautifully tranquil, mountainesque town in the Western Cape.

Our pastor recently mentioned that there are two ways a spring (coil) can break: it can be stretched beyond its limit with a load too heavy to carry, or it can be placed under a manageable load (albeit still heavy) for too long a period. I think we have all experienced life's equivalent of both. And before this trip, I found myself on the other end of another such time.

I felt a little lost. Really tired. Questioning my life decisions. Anxious about the future. Not feeling like I had distinct clarity on what's next, and I really needed to hear from the Lord on a few things about my life. Learning, slowly, to let go of what I thought my life would look like by now.

Like many others, I've always felt that I needed to 'earn' my way to rest. Like I somehow haven't done enough, attained enough, or worked as hard as others to justify resting. In my time away, this manifested as the need to journal more, write something profound, read a lot, sit with the Lord to get those answers so I could sort out my life and calm the storm inside.

But I was too tired to even begin, and nothing felt profound enough to write down. When my mom checked in on me, parental care for her daughter travelling solo, she asked about how I'd been spending my time and how my heart was doing. I answered that I hadn't been doing that much other than enjoying the beauty around me and reading for enjoyment. I somehow expected her to respond with how I’m not making the most of my time. This assumption says more about me than her. It in no way reflects her nature or how she would normally reply to this. She simply said, "That's how it should be..."

My immediate rebuttal was to criticise myself if she wasn’t going to and I asked, "Shouldn't I be sorting the stuff out that’s rolling around in my head?" (I didn't use ‘stuff’.)

Her answer, filled with the grace and wisdom I've come to recognise as coming from the Holy Spirit, simply said, "Nope… You're supposed to LIVE."

You’re… supposed… to… LIVE…

I broke down and cried. I didn't tell her that at the time, of course.

In those five words, I felt the Lord's grace and kindness encouraging me to live and enjoy the life He redeemed. Enjoy the beauty I had the privilege to witness, without feeling like I needed to make this time ‘productive’. To live and breathe and enjoy my life without the constant subconscious slavedriver called "Earning-Your-Worth." I didn't need to figure everything out all at once to somehow be worthy of this. I just needed to be.

So simple. So true. Yet, for my mind, almost too simple. But where Truth is, freedom follows. Real freedom. I felt a burden lift as freedom displaced the heaviness. A Fresh Breath.

This wasn’t a new truth. In fact, it’s something I have told others often. And others have lovingly told me before as well. But it’s not always just about truth-filled words. It’s about words filled with the Breath of God. Filled with His Truth, His heart, His timing, and His power to break chains.

I have been trying for most of my life to earn love. Earn permission to rest. Earn the right to take up space, to have an opinion, to simply be. And in this moment, His truth came yet again to set me free… A process He had hinted at even earlier that same day while I was sipping a latte at a local coffee spot.

I was admiring the scenery and low-key envied the people who got to live and work there - surrounded by mountains, orchards, nature… Then, like the rustling breeze above me, a moment of clarity from the Holy Spirit came with the words: "A cage, no matter how pretty, is still a cage. You can be in prison and be the freest person alive, as Paul demonstrated in his letters to the churches. You can also breathe free air in a palace and be the most bound human on the planet if the storms inside haven’t met the Prince of Peace.”

He was hinting at my heart longing for the peace it found in the surroundings, which, beautiful as they were, did not have the power to calm the storm.

Freedom, real freedom, comes from knowing the Truth - knowing the person of Jesus. We grew up with the words that we should build our lives on the Rock so when the winds and waves come, our house will stand. According to the words of Jesus, building on the Rock (Himself), means hearing His words and doing/applying them. A truth a dear friend and author brought to my attention again recently.

The words I heard during my time away were ‘You’re supposed to live…’ and these words inevitably pointed me back to the nature of my Maker Who, in His kindness and humility, brings calm to my storm as the winds and the waves obey Him.

“Be still and know that I am God.”

PSALM 46:10

The word ‘know’ here is the Hebrew word ‘yada’ which means to deeply know through lived and relational experience. It carries a transformational element which suggests that this kind of knowing transforms you and the way you live.

We can read that verse (in Bianca's paraphrase) as ‘be still, be transformed and know through intimate relationship and lived experience that I am God…’.

From carrying a heavy load for a long time and trying to earn my way into rest, to hearing the Truth and re-discovering His kindness, I experienced yet another transformational invitation. One more invitation to stop striving. One more reminder that I am loved and known. One more invitation to know Him even more.

"Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."

JOHN 17:3