The Gift of Rest (a Greatest Hits article)

This post is part of a five-article series of the most popular articles since the launch of Horizons Resources.

The American Dream tells us that if we work hard enough and believe enough in our own efforts, we can achieve anything. There’s a lie of Satan hiding beneath there, and that lie is one that leads us to call a statute of the Lord archaic that he intended for our benefit and his glory: the call to a Sabbath or to rest.

“Our society values doing over being,” Jenn Granneman writes in The Secret Lives of Introverts: Inside Our Hidden World. “If you’re not actually producing anything, aren’t you just wasting time? It’s not like staring out the window, deep in thought, checks anything off your to-do list… The truth is downtime isn’t a waste of time. Solitude can actually make your life better.”

Constantly Working

As a mother, I constantly have something going on when I’m home, even when my daughter is asleep for the night. I can catch up on laundry, make sure I have something to eat, stare at my phone and let the anxiety build as I masochistically look at ideal lives instead of living in the one I’m in and thanking God for it all. I’d rather talk to God about the life I don’t have but wish I did than sit in his presence and thank him for the life he’s given, the one he knows I need.

As a working, twenty-something (millennial) woman, I have the constant pressure to perform at a level that is twice as good as my coworkers. I try to prove my intelligence and worth and work ethic when they are predisposed to think that because I am a mother, I am not as committed to doing a good job, or because I am a millennial, I want my money handed to me without working for a dime.

As a wife, I am constantly trying to prove to my husband through my efforts that I love him, care for him, and I am grateful for the hard work he does to ensure our family has everything we need. I try and stay healthy for him so he knows that I value how I look for him (that’s another struggle for another time). I try and keep him in the loop of my life because he is my best friend and there is no one I’d rather run to when I’ve got exciting or devastating news than him.

As a worship team member, I’m always trying to be better to prove that I can be a valuable member of the team. It is my passion and honor to serve the Lord through music, and I don’t want to lose that, so I keep trying, I keep pushing, I keep showing up because that’s what I want.

As a Christian, I spend time trying to distract God from seeing the decades of turmoil I have lived under by putting off a vibe that I’ve got it figured out. I read the Bible and chant Scripture mantras to my anxiety, pray at God when I try to distract myself from temptation, and listen to worship music and sermons on my walks and at work as if to say to God, “Nope. Nothing to see here. Just another Christian, doing what will make you happy.”

This takes up my waking hours of every day, and it all comes crashing down when I lie my head down at night. No amount of “Now I lay me down to sleep,” will save my soul from anxious weeps, internal so no one can see, the trouble that lives inside of me. I become acutely aware of the truth that the war waging within is no war of yang and yin that can be balanced with a little, “Ohm” or “Peace begins with me.”

It’s not flesh; it’s not blood. It is what Paul was telling us about in Ephesians 6.

Our Struggle

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:10-12, emphasis mine).

When I came into alignment with the mission of Jesus, my life was given a purpose to build the Kingdom of God, and I want to do that. The deepest parts of myself yearn to dwell in his presence and truth to build the kingdom, but until Christ returns, I’m always going to be struggling against the rulers, authorities, powers, and darkness.

Satan picks moments that God has ordained as good, rest, and he attacks us in those moments.

I don’t know what that is for you, friend, but I want you to know that anytime your mind goes to a place that says God is not for you, he is distant from you, and you are the only one who can provide what it is you need, you are under attack. Satan is attacking you with lies.

Those lies work so well because they’re aligned with the American Dream. The American Dream tells us that we are only enough when we have achieved more than our brother, but it is all based on effort and work you put in. There is no help from others, except as a step on the ladder to the top, and this is not in alignment with God.

Resting in the Gospel

As Christians, it is paramount that we believe the truth that there was absolutely nothing we could do to earn his love and grace and forgiveness. That’s what makes the Gospel so scandalous and hard to wrap our heads around. We cannot accept that we cannot do anything to earn God’s grace, that we cannot show up to church, read a devotional, and then call it a day, show up at heaven’s gates at Judgment Day and just waltz in thinking it was all you. It wasn’t. It was all him who died on the cross for us.

For me, Satan’s attacks come when he takes those times when I should rest to remind me of times I was unprotected, of times I was the only one I could trust, of times I felt incompetent or alone. Then I take it from there, creating parallels with current situations, and then I begin to fall, hurling towards the ground with no end in sight until I grab on to a branch one inch from rock bottom, gasping for air, and trying not to look down. Suddenly, I am convinced that God is not for me, he is distant from me, and that I am the only one who can give me what I truly need. I am believing the lie.

What would it be like if I took a moment to realize that the branch I hold on to an inch from rock bottom is not a branch but the very hand of God?

He holds out his hand and looks in my eyes and says, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” (Matthew 8:26).

Why did you doubt that if you let go of your fear of rest that I would be there?

Why did you doubt that I am with you?

Why did you doubt me?

Am I afraid that he will choose now to fail his promise to be with me, that he will have finally decided to turn his back on me?

I am like Israel, refusing to listen and failing to remember his wonders he has performed. I am failing to see that God did not stop the storm before he went in to the water to rescue Peter, and he will not necessarily calm the storm of my mind or rip me up before I hit rock bottom because he wants to get down into those dark places so that I know that it is HIM who calms the storms. It is HIM who shines his light into the darkness of my soul. It is HIM who takes rock bottom and turns it into a soil from which a mighty testimony will be planted and grown to bring him glory.

As Hebrews 13:5 says, “Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you.” He’s not going to leave me down there. He will bring me out of it as He has time and time again. He has always brought me out, and he is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

Let us be grateful today that we are still a work in progress, and one day we will truly know rest in the presence of the Lord forever. Let us go to him, confess our failed attempts to see his wonder, and thank him for his boundless love, his forgiveness, grace, compassion, and patience. Let us thank him that he will not abandon us, his children, even though we’re actually really terrible, forgetful sheep.