Rest is not about the Easy Chair

Many times when we think of rest, we think about physical rest.  Certainly, as the days of summer roll by with kids out of school and less strenuous schedules there is time for physically relaxing.  I know that I have sought rest in taking vacations, avoiding responsibilities, denying things in my life, and even hoping to escape to a deserted island.  At times the pressures of life seem unrelenting, does Jesus really have a place of rest for us to enter.  In Hebrews 4 we are told there is a Sabbath rest for the Christian to enter, not taking one day a week to rest (though that is great) but a place where we rest from our striving, seeking to please man, busyness, and anxiety.

God wrote into His creation for us to begin our weeks with a day of rest and even had His people rest the land on the 7th year.  He provided for this 7th year by giving them a 3 fold harvest in the 6th year, talk about a picture of trusting God.  While these are wonderful fulfillments of the Sabbath Rest, the greatest fulfillment is in the finished work of Jesus Christ.  When Hebrews 4 tells us to labor to enter into His rest it seems like an oxymoron.  Yet I find that the world system around me wars to pull me from a place of rest and overall does not value rest.  Since our resting from our works requires us to trust God.

Being busy and achieving are much more valued than rest and intimacy.  We are going to need to stand in the place that Christ has purchased for us and proclaim His finished work in the face of mounting responsilibities, pressures from our jobs, worries and fears about our kids, increasingly difficult problems in our world, personal struggles, and people hurting in our own families and friendships.  All these war to pull us away from simply trusting in who Jesus is for us and in us.

I see amazing believers and leaders who have entered into a place of rest but they have had to stand in the face of much that would seek to steal that rest.  The answer is not to seek to impose control and limits on the world around us so that there is peace.  As a father and husband how many long days working have I come home hoping there would be peace in my home, no issues with the kids, no more talk of schedules that don't seem to connect, or problems with the house.  When I look for peace outside of Christ I become irritable and frustrated with what does not line up with that peace.  When I dwell in a place of peace and rest with Jesus, then I am able to release this peace to others around me.  We must set boundaries but not to control others, so we can priortize the relationship which all life flows from.

Entering His Rest,
Bret