“You’re nervous”. That’s one of the first things that my driving instructor said to me after I got inside his car. “No, I’m not”, I replied, “I’m just naturally fidgety. I’m actually not nervous at all. I just move a lot.”. “That’s what I mean”, he said back while he began to flail his arms around like an impatient toddler , “you’re life is too fast and if you keep living like that, it’ll be too dangerous for you to drive. That’s why you’re here.” For those of you wondering, this was recent. Like, last week recent. I had gotten in 3 car accidents that were all my fault within 35 1/5 months (2 weeks short of not falling into my predicament). This led me to have to take a pricey 4 hour behind the wheel driving course. The statement my instructor made was not an accident or misunderstanding, either. He read me like a book as soon as I made my first impression and I don’t think God’s hand was far from it. The truth is, I have always been fast. Too fast. I’ve been in a hurry, needing to get to places quickly and accomplish goals. I’m always on overdrive (pun intended). This man I just met saw that instantly.
It didn’t take long for me to find out that my instructor was a retired Pastor who had lived a life in overdrive as well. For some reason, I was motivated to shut my mouth (something that’s a challenge for me) and listen to him pour out wisdom and life educating stories. There was one story he told me that I think will stick forever and it lined up with everything the Lord had been speaking to me over the past few months. This man had Pastored a church while working other jobs on the side, being heavily involved at a martial arts school, and tending to his wife. In the midst of all of this, his body shut down and he was diagnosed with a failed thyroid and less than a month to live. Without medical insurance or an idea on how to treat his condition, it took a miracle for him to make it through. Although he did eventually recover, he took a heavy hit that’s still affecting life. In tears, he began to tell me how he saw a lot of himself in me being in a hurry and exhausting myself without resting. “Slow down and don’t get yourself in the same situation. You’re ineffective if you run yourself down like I did.” This became an exclamation point on a lesson the Lord’s been teaching me about RESTING. It seems easy, but it’s a fight, especially for hyperactive and busy people.
There are three main reasons the Lord’s shown me why rest is so important: Health, Strength, and Production.
Health
God laid out the groundwork and created life to include the necessity of rest for health and sustenance. He himself rested one the seventh day after creating the earth (Genesis 2:2-3). God saw that ALL of his WORK was good but he still found it necessary to rest from it. If God needed rest from work, we definitely need it. Lack of rest caused my driving instructor’s health to diminish and it was beginning to cause mine to as well. For four years leading up to this driving course, I had been non-stop with a busy schedule (a lot of which was my own doing) and not taking time to breath because “I’m young and I am capable”. It very quickly began to to result in insomnia, lower energy levels, barely being able to stay awake at work, thinning hair, and a list of other things that could never end. The key here from what this man was telling me, along with everyone else close to me in my life (Especially God), was that I needed to incorporate rest into my life because the way I was living it was destructively unhealthy. It’s been two weeks, i’ve forced myself to take days and evenings off doing nothing but reading, and i’ve already noticed a difference in both my physical and spiritual health.
Strength
While health results from rest, we also receive strength from it. A couple of months ago, the Lord brought Isaiah 30:15 to my attention. It says “This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One says: In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength. But you would have none of it.” Wow. I wonder how many people are like me and live a life void of this principle and command of God for his people. I have often relied on my own strength, my own words, and my own work to accomplish my own goals. I wanted to earn X amount of money, I wanted this and that degree, I wanted this and that title. It ran me down and I became weak in so many areas of my life. It’s encouraging to know that God tells us to rest. He tells us to stop pushing so hard and stop moving so fast and stop talking so much. Just stop, turn back around, be silent, and trust him. Here you find more strength than you could ever muster up yourself.
Production
Production from rest is a two-fold endeavor. First, there’s production that occurs and increases as a result of the health and strength discussed earlier. There have been so many times I’ve pushed past tiredness to finish something and the result ended up being worse than it would have if I took some time to lay back. It’s the runnin on E parallel. While this is a very important aspect of the production that increases from rest, the second aspect is the #1 concept a believer must grasp in order to be the most effective he or she can be. That’s the production that results from God’s hand and not our own. Very often, lack of rest is a direct representation of our trust and desire to do things by our own efforts and abilities instead of first and foremost relying on God’s. He’s a lot more capable and his way is much easier/lighter (Matthew 11:28-30). God demonstrates this in Exodus when the Israelites were battling the Amalekites. Whenever Moses, the leader of Israel, had his hands raised towards God, Israel was winning and had the upper hand in the battle. But whenever his hands were dropped and not lifted towards God, the Israelites began to lose ground to their enemy. In the same way, if we aren’t resting in and lifting our lives to him, we will begin to lose ground rather than gain it. Keep those hands lifted and that focus shifted.
This lesson of rest is something I wished I had learned and applied to my life a lot earlier but it couldn’t have been brought to my attention at a better time. Preparing to go and give my life to God and his Kingdom in other countries comes with a lot of “to-do’s” to check off my list. I came into this preparation stage with a “get it done by my own strength” mentality and that simply will not cut it. Not when you have to raise $20,000 dollars, amass a hefty collection of travelling gear, work full time, and finish a Master’s degree. I was close to a wall when this lesson hit me, but I know that rest is the key to this time in my life and the overall production I (God) will produce eternally. That $20,000 looks rough, but it’s a snap of the finger for my God. That list of gear seems pretty intimidating, but my father is a giver of good gifts to his children. That job seems difficult at times, but I have a helper that’s closer than a brother. That schoolwork seems stressful, but my savior is the answer to ALL things. I’m excited for this journey and excited connect and put my hands to the plow. I’m just gonna have to make sure it’s his plow and not mine (also, that it’s left alone every 7th day).
