On Rest...

I know I wrote about rest not too long ago, but it seems to be a recurring theme in my life lately, a topic God is really trying to hammer home, so here I go again…

For so much of my life I’ve been serving and doing and “behaving”.  For a long time, I thought all of this busyness would earn me God’s approval and thus, the things I want from Him.  I’ve grown a lot in my understanding of grace over the years, that God’s grace is a gift because of His love for me and not something I could ever earn.  But still, it’s hard sometimes to stop the doing.  And although I know in my head that I can’t possibly earn God’s love or approval, my heart sometimes forgets and cries out to God, “Don’t you see all of this STUFF I’m doing for you?!”  Sorry if that’s ugly; just keeping it real. 

Lately, though, God has finally gotten my attention.  As I said, rest seems to be a popular theme in books I’ve been reading, podcasts I’ve been listening to, and even in my own time with the Lord.  In yet another, “God, what’s the deal?” rant lately, I felt like God finally cut through the noise I keep going constantly, “I DIDN’T ASK FOR ALL OF YOUR STRIVING!  I just want YOU.”  Oh. He wants me to be still, to rest in Him.  

For years I thought that if I was a “good Christian” then God would give me the desires of my heart, namely, a husband and kids.  But God doesn’t promise a husband and kids or a perfect family in a suburban white picket fenced house anywhere in scripture.  Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”  Most of the time, I’m not a huge fan of this verse because I think it often falls in one of two camps for Christians: 1) We take it out of context and think we can use it to get whatever we want.  2) It’s used as a copout for those of us waiting on something like marriage, children, healing, whatever as pat advice.  The true context of this verse, though, is that when we find our delight in the Lord, He will, in fact, give us more of Himself!  All these years that I’ve grumbled to God about being single and filling my time with all the things to make up for the fact that I’m not married, God has been waiting for me.  Not just to do my daily quiet time to check a box, but to truly delight in Him.  I’ve seen my singleness as a burden but maybe He has meant it as a gift, a special time to invest in my relationship with Him in a way that I wouldn’t necessarily be able to if I were managing a household and wiping butts and sweeping cheerio crumbs up off the floor.

Hebrews 4:11 says that we need to make every effort to enter God’s rest. I’m not sure about you but for me this often feels like so. Much. Effort.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the very next verse in Hebrews, 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  While the book of Hebrews was written some two thousand years ago, I think God knew the overachieving, high pressure society we live in today would need these verses.  It’s like He’s saying, “Yea, I get it.  Rest is hard.  You’re busy.  Do it anyway.  I did it, and I made the entire world.  Pretty sure you can find some time to do it too.”  Sometimes I think God speaks to me a bit sarcastically, as it’s a language I understand fluently. 

Regardless of whether you feel God uses sarcasm, I hope we can all agree that rest is necessary, beneficial, and commanded by God.  We’re in a super busy season right now in FCA with preparing for the Loudoun Victory Dinner and gearing up for camps so rest has not been a top priority for me lately and God graciously (using minor sarcasm here) allowed a killer sinus infection to knock me on my back over the past few days to force me to slow down.  I may not always like His methods (she says while resembling Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer), but I know that I have never regretted spending quiet time resting in my God.