FINDING REST FOR OUR SOUL

The deepest and most permanent truth about our created humanity is our restlessness. (R.R. Reno, Genesis, p.63)

There never seems to be an end to the things we have to do. We are always trying to achieve goals which, when reached, have to be reset higher. From childhood I was raised by my parents always to be busy. Even to this day I am harder on myself than anyone else. I feel great satisfaction when, after a full day in which much has been done and accomplished, I sink into bed, and drop off to sleep. Yet, there are times when I lie awake, not able to drop back into sleep because so many things are going through my mind. Insomnia is an affliction for many. The more productive and motivated you are the more difficult it is for you to rest. God made us to work but also to be renewed through rest.

There is a divine rhythm to life: six days of work and one of rest; sixteen hours of work and eight hours of sleep. When we do not get enough sleep or rest we get sick. The diagnosis is called ‘exhaustion.’ Sleep deprivation is used to disorient those under interrogation. We are hardwired by God to be recharged through adequate sleep and rest. When we don’t get enough sleep or rest we crash in one way or another. We need to respect this need in our lives if we are be physically healthy and emotionally whole.

When God had finished the work of creating, he rested. What does that mean? John Calvin comments:

It is certain that since God sustains the world by his power, governs it by his providence, and cherishes and even propagates all creatures, he is constantly at work. If God should but withdraw his hand a little, all things would immediately perish and dissolve into nothing. So why does Moses say God rested? The solution to the difficulty is well known: God ceased from all his work when he desisted from the creation of new kinds of things.

Likewise, when Jesus completed his work of salvation on the Cross he cried, “It is finished!” God calls us to enter into his rest by believing in, trusting in, his work on our behalf.

There remains a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest (Hebrews 4:1-11).

What does that mean? We are meant to rest from our attempts to justify our existence, or to earn or deserve our salvation. Instead we are to enter into the rest of God. Only when we learn to do so will we experience the sense of completion that is God’s purpose for us. We are designed to live by God’s grace – his free, unearned, undeserved gift. But this is quite a challenge for those of us who feel the need to be valued for our contribution or achievements. Workaholics and perfectionists find entering into God’s rest a most difficult task. Ask us to do something, to take on a task, and we will do it. But ask us to admit our inability to do anything but receive that which God wants to give us in his grace, and we will foam at the mouth. Doing is our religion, our reason for being. Yet God rested on the seventh day.

This rest of God does not end on the seventh day, but continues on through eternity. We believe that there is a heavenly realm in which God has consummated his rest. We are invited to enter it. No, we are commanded to enter it. We are to make every effort to enter it. In fact, when we die the Lord makes us lie down and rest whether we want to or not. When we enter the kingdom of heaven through faith in Christ, we enter into God’s rest. In the words of the Sanctus, we join all creation, the communion of saints, the angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven, in coming to the throne of God in worship – acknowledging the sovereignty of God.

We are commanded:

Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth (Ps 46:10).

In this life, when we worship, we are rehearsing our lines for when we will be in heaven in the presence of God. If we don’t learn how to enter into God’s rest now we will be unprepared for that day when we come face to face with him in eternity.

Helmut Thielicke, when preaching on this passage of Genesis wrote:

I often think about what will happen to me when I can no longer work, perhaps when old age comes and hand and eye have grown weary, or perhaps in some other long period of enforced rest. None of us knows, after all, what lies ahead of us, what unexpected pages may be opened in the book of our life by a higher hand. When that time comes will I awaken out of my work and my busy activity as from an anesthetic and not know where I am? Will I be at loss to know what to do with myself and then begin to moan that my life no longer has any meaning or content? How empty life is for many old people when they retire! Or will I be aware then of the high and holy hand that sweeps aside with a sublime gesture all that I have worked upon and created; will I hear a voice saying, ‘These things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ Then the money I may have earned will be consumed by moth and rust, and the success I may have achieved will sink into unsubstantial shadow. Then some altogether different questions will begin to stir: Are there any treasures in your life that have permanent value, that do not trickle through your fingers like sand, but remain in eternity? Have you believed and hoped and loved? Have you learned, even in the midst of utter loneliness, to listen to God and answer him, and thus to live in anticipation of the joy. Soren Kierkegaard requested that the following poem be inscribed on his gravestone:

In a little while,

I shall have won,

The entire battle

Will at once be done.

Then I may rest

In halls of roses

And unceasingly

And unceasingly

Speak with my Jesus.

What good is the most thrilling romance of a life, yea what good will it do if my life has been successful in secondary things and men heap carloads of wreaths upon my coffin, what good will all this be, if a higher hand writes on the margin of my life: ‘You missed the theme; you did not get the point. I sent you signal after signal in judgments and promises. But you did not see and did not hear. You saw only your barns which you wanted to fill, but not the Father’s house where one day you would stand. You acted as if you would live forever – as Adam wanted to do – as if there were no eternity on whose shore your journey would one day end.’ (Helmut Thielicke, How The World Began, pp.113-114)

The promise of God to Moses after all his work on God’s behalf was, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” (Exodus 33:14) Jesus calls to us: “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matt 11:28-29)

This promise is for the present and not just for the future life. A gravestone may tell us that the deceased is R.I.P.: resting in peace. But Jesus is telling us that when we come to him now and become his disciple, and follow him, we will find rest for our souls. This is the goal of creation – to enter into God’s rest in Christ.

 “You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” (St. Augustine, Confessions)

How restless are you? Can you lay down your burdens and enter into the rest that Jesus supplies? What is preventing you from doing so? Can you receive what Jesus wants to give you – rest for your soul?

Let us pray:

Lord, support me all the day long of this troublous life, until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes and the busy world is hushed and the fever of life is over and my work is done. Then in your mercy grant me a safe lodging and a holy rest and peace at the last, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (John Henry Newman)

Spirit of God, set at rest the crowded, hurrying, conscious thoughts within our minds and hearts. Let the peace and quiet of your presence take possession of us. Help us to relax, to rest, to become open and receptive to you. You know our inmost spirits, the hidden, unconscious life within us, the forgotten memories of hurts and fears, the frustrated desires, the unresolved tensions and dilemmas. Cleanse and sweeten the springs of our being, that freedom, life and love may flow into our conscious and hidden life. Lord, we lie open before you, waiting for your healing, your peace, and your word. Amen. (George Appleton)

Excerpted from DAY BY DAY WITH TED SCHRODER, . pp.46-50