One concept that has equally burdened and comforted me this year has been – rest. The race has been the longest time I have felt continuously exhausted. We all remember what cramming for finals week was like; you put up with the stress to push through because you knew that afterwards you had Christmas break to rest. Or that deadline at work; as soon as you finished and the date came, then you would rest. Rest always comes after the hard work. But with this whole year being hard work, physically, emotionally and definitely spiritually, I have struggled with finding the right amount and kind of rest. Sleeping is never promising with community living and third world country sounds of crying babies and/or loud farm animals. Days off are utilized for laundry, trips to the internet café, and catching up on writing blogs. Spending intentional time with Jesus in my daily devotional has become the one thing that I hold to and promise by when it comes to finding rest as I have tried napping and going to bed early and they don’t quite do the trick.
When reading through the Gospels recently, one of my new prayers has been for Jesus to teach me to sleep through the storms of life. Not to apathetically check out and not care, but to be in a calm and peaceful place with him. Mark describes in chapter 4 verses 35-41 of when Jesus calms the storm and he illustrates the scene with such beauty. As the disciples and Jesus left the crowd he was teaching and boarded their boat, a furious storm started to thrash and threatened to swamp the boat. The disciples were fear ridden. Jesus though, was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him, and anxiously asked if he even cared that they might drown. Jesus got up, rebuked the wind and waves telling them to quiet and be still, and after they listened, he asked his disciples, men of little faith, why they were so afraid.
I love this. I love that faith is what the disciples were lacking – faith that they were going to survive, trust that they were not going to drown, and confidence that Jesus was going to save them. Jesus was sleeping during all of this, because he had just what they were lacking; he has faith that they were going to survive, trust that they were not going to drown and confidence that God is sovereign and in control of all of life’s storms. I also love that Mark used detail to describe Jesus sleeping… on a cushion. I doubt that boats thousands of years ago had extra cushions lying around, meaning that Jesus must have carried a cushion around with him from place to place. Not because Jesus was lazy, but because he is a man at rest.
This is what I want. To be that person carrying around my cushion, because I know that wherever I am going to go, whatever kind of storm is brewing, however big the waves are that are trying to overtake me – I am going to be at rest, maybe even sleeping because I am so confident in the Lord’s provision over my life; so confident that I do not need to worry as we are instructed to in Matthew 6; so confident that God means to give me the rest he promises me as I increase my faith in him.
So if you see me walking around with a pillow… it’s because I’m a woman of faith.
