The Season of Rest

Praise God for rest. I think I strained something in my rest last night. Our rest in this world may not be perfect. The fallen world, the curse of Adam's disobedience, and the toil of worry may combine to rob our rest of perfect resting. With eager anticipation we look forward to a season of rest that does not end. Does that mean no work or accomplishment in Heaven? I don't think so, but rather it means that we will finally learn to rest completely in God. Now, we strain and struggle against the conditions in the world and the weakness in our bodies and minds. We don't rest well.

I saw in the news this week that on Monday people are most tired. Wait, you mean the day after a weekend of rest they are the most fatigued? Yup, it seems that we don't rest well. The ability to do work while resting in our God seems beyond us right now. We yearn for a day or a week or a season of rest, but when we get it we are not very good about resting in it. How many of you entered last weekend with a list of things to do? Even those things that we want to do for enjoyment require effort to get there, to set up something, to prepare food or other things that are not rest in the literal sense. So, we just need to rest more?

Some of you may need that, but the point is that even resting on a bed in sleep we are not going to do very well in this world. Sin is at work in us, even as we try to rest. The strains of the prior day's work cause aches and pains that appear most after a night's rest. Some mornings it feels as though we didn't sleep at all. Some nights are a wrestling match between the desire to sleep and the temptation to worry. We seem to lose no matter which side wins the match. The strength to go on comes from God, and yes it does seem like He gives only just enough to get through some days. Other days, God's provision of strength sends us into the streets praising His name. You and I do not know what each day will bring, but to improve our rest, we must learn to rest in God's goodness. That doesn't mean that we look around for a couch labeled, 'God's goodness', but that we trust God to love us.

Trust God to love us?! Seem strange and alien to you? Yeah, me too. We are so far from that final product God will finish in us that we cannot understand right now all that it is to rest in God's goodness while trusting Him to love us as He already does! So, we must gird up our lions and herd our cats to take it on faith that God does love us, even as we are right now.

God's blessings to you,
Bucky