Rest is promise from God. So why is it so hard to do?
The past 3 years I’ve been on and off the mission field. Mostly on. So when I’m home, God has made it clear, His intent is for rest. I don’t hate it. The first couple of days. Then I’m bored. Lonely at a place that longer feels like home. And I feel like there are 100 other things I could be doing besides taking bike rides, laying around in my eno, and listening to an absurd amount of podcasts.
I could’ve gotten a job…except I’m only around for a few weeks. That’s long enough to get through an interview process. I could’ve gotten the word out I’m home to pick up some babysitting hours, or a dog sitting gig…or something. At the very least I could be doing something, anything more to support raise. All of these thoughts, distractions, worries…they rob of true rest.
God’s promises are grounds the enemy consistently tries to steal from us.
“The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy” John 10:10
It’s our victory to have rest. It’s a gift. But we have to receive first, and like everything else it can be a spiritual battle. We have to remember that ultimately we have already won it all through Christ. So even though we face trials in this world, we are fighting from victory, not for it. When we live from our inheritance, rather than by our circumstances, we can freely receive by faith what God has already won for us.
It’s like Joshua. He had the faith to receive what was promised, while everyone else shrunk in fear. It was Joshua who was bold and willing to enter the promise land regardless of the giants.
“And Joshua, the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, we were among those who spied out the land, tore their cloths, and said to the people of Israel, ‘the land,which we passed through to spy out, is an exceedingly good land. It the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey’” Numbers 14:6-8
It was Joshua in the story of Jericho that we all know so well. It was His faith to receive that allowed Him to see and to have the Lord’s victory in the fall of Jericho.
“And the Lord said to Joshua “See I have given Jericho into your hand, with its’ king and mighty men of valor” Joshua 6:2
God didn’t tell Joshua to “Go take that city” He gave it to him. Joshua didn’t fight FOR victory, he fought FROM victory, because he didn’t live from circumstance but His inheritance. Joshua didn’t conquer the land, God gave him the land and Joshua had enough to faith to receive it.
But what then is faith.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” ESV
“The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living.” THE MESSAGE
Faith is ultimately trust in God.
When we receive by faith our inheritance in Christ, we are trusting that what God promises to us is good.
He promises us the gift of rest. Because it is good for us. When we don’t receive this gift, when we don’t keep a sabbath, we go astray in our hearts. Psalm 95 says
“For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,and they have not known my ways.”
Rest is our provision and protection, when we don’t take it, we leave ourselves vulnerable to sin, disobedience, and worst of all, distant from our God.
Rest is attitude to live with, not a day to put aside. An attitude of rest is an attitude of trust.
This is what I’m learning while I’m taking a bike ride with my mom and drinking another cup of tea, instead of worrying about finances and fundraising.
I’ve been promised an abundant life.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
And when I spend my rest, with a distracted mind and fearful heart, I’m letting the enemy rob me of not only intimacy but adventure with the Father.
So in the next couple weeks I have at home, with family and friends, I’m going to enjoy it. I’m going to rest with my Father. And I’m going to freely receive everything He has for me, so that when I’m on the field for another 9 months, I am an overflow, a constant outpouring of His love, grace, wisdom, and understanding for the men and women G squad.
I’m choosing an attitude of rest. And I’m choosing to trust that my God is my provider and He will take care of my every need. I no longer need to spend my rest time, working, worrying to provide for myself. I have a good good Father. That’s for sure.
