Then There Was Rest

Who here complains about being tired? Hands in the air, yes, even those of you sitting in your living room on your couch with no one looking. Put your hand in the air…go ahead and make it real.

Often there are phases of life that are more exhausting than others. As a teenager you think you’re tired because you stayed up until 6am. As a young working adult, you’re tired, because work and life just don’t get accomplished without sacrificing sleep. After you have children, the most incredible thing happens. You realize how tired you weren’t for the past 20/30-some years because this is tired…the never-ending kind of tired…the kind you can’t ever recover from kind of tired. As someone who has gone through those phases of life and now has kids that successfully sleep through the night I can greatly appreciate the sleep I am getting, but still find myself totally drained at the end of the day or week. Guess what! Being tired is normal. But is the norm good for us? Well, when we normally eat fast food for lunch on a Saturday we can agree that’s a normal we should change. So why can’t we just make a decision to change bad sleeping habits as easily as we can choose to change bad eating habits? In years of reading about others’ struggles with sleep I have come to find that many feel they are not in control of their rest. Their busy schedules dictate their inability to sleep. Their stress levels keep them awake. Their opportunities for rest are stolen by unforeseeable events. Is that you? I know my hand is raised. By the way, if you have a medical condition related to rest I am not pretending to understand your absolute horror.

I think it is important every once in a while to remember that the God of the universe advertised rest after six very involved and complex days of hard work. Those things that we have spent thousands of years trying to figure out, he created in six days! I know some may feel that time was measured differently “back then” but truth be told, we have no idea, and should really just be focused on believing what the word of God says – all of it. That also means that if God decided to rest on the seventh day – the very first seventh day of our universe’s time, we probably need to do the same.

I am not here to tell you how to run your life, how to get more sleep, etc. You are, in fact, in charge of that. You know your struggles and your circumstances. What I want to show you is this passage that actually doesn’t have to do with sleep at all. When you read it though, I want you to bask in the rest it provides you:

Revelation 22:7-13 (NLT)

Jesus Is Coming

⁸ I, John, am the one who heard and saw all these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me. ⁹ But he said, “No, don’t worship me. I am a servant of God, just like you and your brothers the prophets, as well as all who obey what is written in this book. Worship only God!”

¹⁰ Then he instructed me, “Do not seal up the prophetic words in this book, for the time is near. ¹¹ Let the one who is doing harm continue to do harm; let the one who is vile continue to be vile; let the one who is righteous continue to live righteously; let the one who is holy continue to be holy.”

¹² “Look, I am coming soon, bringing my reward with me to repay all people according to their deeds. ¹³ I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”

OK, I know what you’re thinking…where on earth is the “rest” connection; the place where this makes me feel all warm and happy and like my problems are going to fade away? I think I have apologized in posts before…let this be another one of those times. God did not say the path would be full of bountiful rest with pillows, comforters, sun blocking curtains, and soothing music. He did say if we are weary we can come to Him to find rest. That is Matthew 11:28-30.

Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ 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. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Believe it or not, there is correlation between this and the first passage. Rest, peace, letting go, and trusting Him all result in an element of rest. In the first passage, I love verses 10 and 11 – the indication is that evil things are going to be evil. Although we have an obligation to do what is right and to impact bad things to help make them better, there is also a point where we are going to have to let go and allow ourselves to rest. Let go of the anxiety that something awful is going to happen to you or your loved ones. Let go of the nightmares that tell you that something irreversible is going to touch your life and you won’t survive it. In Revelations and in Matthew the message seems to be saying rest is in faith. I guarantee you will have more success sleeping peacefully if your faith in God extends through every piece of your life. Do good while you are awake. Work hard. Be tired! But just because society says to, don’t kill yourself working so hard for the things you perceive you need if it takes away from your rest (physically or psychologically). Some of you may think I just don’t get it. I want to assure you, I have been broke enough to have to piece together a meal out of canned meat, 1/3 of a bag of pasta, and some peanut butter because that is all I had. I went to school full time while working full time for 7 1/2 years while also getting married and having my two kids. You want to talk about exhausted! Someone once told me, “no one ever died from being tired.” I beg of you to not be that person. I felt like I was dying in that moment, and that did nothing at all, except make me feel worse.

I feel like we, as a society (me included), compete for higher levels of stress just as much as we compete for nice big houses, work success, and the other “best things” that are visible to others. Part of the reasoning being this silly competition is because we are feigning for sleep and don’t see how delusional we are in thinking that those achievements will ever make us happy. Get some rest and wake up with renewed perspective. Next, take a look at what is going right in your life. On that seventh day of rest I imagine God didn’t hang out in his room with the lights off, the blankets over his head, condemning that bird He created that just won’t be quiet. I am pretty sure that His rest included soaking in the wonder of what He had made. So look around and see what all your hardwork has brought you. Maybe you have nothing to show for it in your mind. Then be grateful you have a device that is allowing you to read this…that you have the ability to read…that you have eyes that allow you to see…that your vision and comprehension connect. There is always something to be grateful for. Finally, place all your burdens at the feet of Jesus. Let the things that are harmful just be harmful without you for a minute; stop allowing them to weigh down your mind and steal your rest. Focus on God’s promise. In the end, no amount of worrying or non-restful behavior will get you closer to Him, and He is what matters. Jesus IS!