True Rest

6 min read

28 “But as soon as they were at rest, they again did what was evil in your sight. Then you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies so that they ruled over them. And when they cried out to you again, you heard from heaven, and in your compassion you delivered them time after time.”
— Nehemiah 9:28

Is being at rest the problem? Whenever the Israelites were “at rest,” their minds, hearts, and bodies started to stray away from God. It’s only when they were in distress that they remembered God and cried out to Him. And God is such that He will not abandon His people when they turn to Him and cry out to Him.

Turning to Him and turning away from our idols is the definition of repentance—even if we are turning to Him in distress. But the fact that God will never abandon me when I call to Him is a great source of comfort for me. God has delivered me in many times and in many ways, even though I fall short of His glory every day.

But rest-distress-repentance-deliverance—that’s not the kind of life I want to live. Does God need to (or want to) bring distress and persecution into my life to remind me to turn to Him every day?

The word of God gives us a solution to this vicious cycle. The answer is to never find our rest in the world but to find our rest in Christ.

The life of a child of God is a life on mission to fill the earth with His glory in Jesus’s name through God-fearing, God-honoring, God-worshiping, God-loving communities and families—the church. If we don’t get that, we don’t truly get the gospel.

A life on mission with Christ is a life of rest in Christ. And that is because a life on mission with Christ is where Christ is with us (Matthew 28:19-20).

That is not to suggest that everyone needs to give up their careers and become missionaries and pastors.

But then again, why not? The devil’s lies in this world are most evident in the scarcity of people entering ministry, IMHO. More often than not, parents stifle the calling of God in their children’s hearts. They quench the Spirit of God (1 Thessalonians 5:19). Of course, it is a calling from God, but it is a calling that requires a response in order to be fulfilled. For what? Comfort? Rest?

I enjoy a good vacation as much as anyone, and there is nothing wrong with enjoying times of leisure. But true rest comes when we are yoked with Christ. And if we are yoked with Christ, we will go where He goes and plow where He plows. In other words, the priority of our lives would be to fulfill the purposes of God given to us in His word.

And in going and plowing, we find true rest because we are yoked with Christ (Matthew 11:28-30).

Father, I thank You for the calling You have given to me. I have stumbled through it on so many occasions and in so many ways. And yet You have always been there for me—not because I am a pastor, but because I call on Your name and seek my rest in Christ. I pray that You would help my brothers and sisters in Canvas to fulfill the calling You have given to all of us when You adopted us as Your children and find their true rest as well. In Jesus’s name. Amen.