Weekend Words

 From Water My Soul...

Rest

Read: Leviticus 25:1-5; Matthew 11:28-30; Hebrews 4:1-11

When I found myself standing in the middle of the living room wondering why I was there and what I was looking for, I suddenly understood my mum so much better.

As a girl, I didn't know how it was possible to forget what you were seeking before you got to the next room.  When it happened to Mum sometimes, I'd think, "She must be aging remarkably fast."  I couldn't believe it might happen to me someday.

I didn't realize it at the time, but the years of our youth inhabit a very small length of time.  Every additional year of life adds more responsibilities, bills, names, acquaintances, work, repairs, things needing your attention.  There's so much more to do, so much more to remember, and so many more people making demands on your time.  Life can become a whirlwind of haste.  No wonder a middle-aged brain blows a fuse occasionally and forgets what it was supposed to remember.

God knew we needed rest.  A night's sleep to recharge our batteries between the days.  A day of rest and worship to begin each week.  In the Old Testament, even every seventh year was set aside to be a year of rest for the land (see Leviticus 25).  It seems to me that God never intended us to charge at life as if we had to get it before it gets us.  He planned for us to have decent intervals of rest and rejuvenation.

"Come unto me," Jesus invites, "and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me;...and ye shall find rest unto your souls" (Matthew 11:28-29).  Here Jesus twice promises rest if we'll only come to him, give him our sins and burdens, and learn to abide in him.  He wants us to slow down, to make room for him, and to understand that a life lived too fast loses much of its peace. 

An anonymous writer penned these words: "Returning to solitude, that meadowland for hearts, allows fruit to be borne, for fields left fallow to rest, yield richest harvest."

That was why God created a day of rest, a year of Sabbath, and night for repose.  If we don't take time for rest and refreshment, if we burn out completely, the harvest will suffer.  We won't just stand in the middle of the room wondering what we're doing there; we'll neglect to care for our souls and the souls of our children.

In a world full of increasing chaos and turmoil, the balance of rest can be hard to find.  Some seasons of life are incredibly wearying, and rest seems illusory.  Minds and bodies are stretched thin, the responsibilities of family, mortgage, and business as well as home and church and school are a daily juggling act.  Then the promise in Hebrews becomes especially beloved: " There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God" (4:9).

Hebrews 4 is a challenge to enter into God's rest, and it sums up what should be the reason for all our work: "Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest" (verse 11).  If rest seems fleeting and illusory here, and our brains are stressed out by trying to keep up with the demands placed upon them, that verse puts everything back into it's proper perspective.

Our most important job is work that takes us closer to heaven, God's peaceful, stress-free home.  He has created eternal rest for all is people.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for the rest you've promised.  When life feels out of control today, remind me that some things can wait but that spending time with you and caring for my family can't.