Rest

Rest. This has been a constant theme in my life lately, and something that the Lord is graciously and gently pressing into me. Admittedly, it is something that I fall short of fully understanding and doing. I feel the intense pressures of trying to keep up with our fast-paced society almost daily. In order to win the approval of man (because I'm such a people pleaser), I tend to fill my life with unnecessary things and activities because I want to impress others and satisfy my selfish desires to appear "successful" and "productive." Don't get me wrong, success and productivity are not bad things. It's how you achieve them and perceive them that can be sinful. But to those of you who can relate to me in this, is it not just exhausting?! Draining? Life-sucking?! The moment I wake up, I feel the battle, the war waging between my flesh and spirit, the choice between resting in Christ or giving in to the world's demands. Now, I'm not just talking about a physical rest, but a spiritual and emotional rest. I am talking about the kind of rest that Jesus promises in Matthew 11:28-30 -"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Let me first preface by saying, I am in NO WAY a master of the Scriptures or a great theologian, but I am in a continual process of learning His Word. I don't have all the answers, but I believe God is using His Word to transform me, and I am always open to corrections and more resources to gain wisdom. With that said, the kind of rest I'm talking about is the kind that Jesus gives us in exchange for our burdens and weariness. Think about that for a second: Jesus, the perfect Son of God, the One who holds all things together, who took on all the weight of our sin, says give Me your burdens and I will give you rest. What a trade! That is mind-blowing to me, especially when I try to hold on to my burdens. Why on earth would I want to hold on to these heavy loads of bricks when Jesus wants to freely give me rest and relief? And He can handle ALL OF IT! Could it be a control issue? A trust issue? Both maybe? I don't have to earn His rest....I simply have to trust Him. But it is impossible to be at rest when you are trying to shoulder everything yourself. So...it starts with surrender. It was only a few weeks ago when I was leading worship at a retreat that I heard the best description of surrender. The speaker said it something like this: "Surrender is both a literal and metaphorical collapsing into the arms of Jesus." I love that! Since then, I haven't been able to get that phrase out of my head. It has become my prayer every time I realize that I am trusting in my own abilities or strengths. I pray, Lord, I collapse into your arms - I surrender. That word, "collapse," really helps me to visualize my reliance upon the Lord. It's beautiful! And once we 'collapse,' we are finally realizing where our resting place is - Jesus. He is always our place of rest - no matter where we are, whether we are at work or at home, in a crowd of people or alone, in the valley or on the mountaintop, whether asleep or awake, struggling through sin after sin - we can rest in the finished work of Christ. I love what Jerry Bridges says in his book, Respectable Sins, "not only does the gospel prepare me to face my sin, it also frees me up to do so." So we can rest in the assurance of Christ that our sin is forgiven "before [we] can even acknowledge it, let alone begin to deal with it." I can go to God to confess my sin and know that He has already forgiven me. What beautiful truth!


I want to share with you a specific experience that I had just recently that has allowed me to apply these truths. About a month ago, I picked up a second job in the afternoons to make some extra money to contribute to my trip to Uganda. I already get up at 4 in the morning to go to my first job, so needless to say, I'm pretty tired by mid-afternoon. The Lord has also placed some really awesome opportunities to do some traveling and leading worship on the weekends, which takes time to prepare for. It didn't take very long after the new job started, though, for me to realize that I had taken on way too much. I began to see that my focus was all over the place. I was trying to "do it all," to prove to myself that I was self-sufficient and that I could handle it. Then one day as I was spending some rushed time with the Lord, and crying out to Him for help because I was so weak and drained, I heard God speak so clearly to me. I was in Hebrews 12, reading, "...let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith..." I felt like the Lord was saying so gently, Where is your focus, Kristie? As I continued to process and let the Word digest, the Lord walked along side of me to get to the root of my anxiety. I chose to pick up an extra job, because somewhere in my heart was disbelief- disbelief that God would actually provide the finances for me to go to Uganda, and take care of my expenses while I am gone. This was my "back up" plan, you know, in case God wasn't going to come through (that is what my heart was saying - how deceitful!). In that moment of clarity, I collapsed. I collapsed into the loving, merciful, grace-giving arms of Christ, breathing out all the air I had locked in, and finally gasping for breath, I cried, "I surrender, Lord! Have Your way in me!" You see, I had taken matters into my own hands, rather than resting in Christ, resting in His promises that He would be faithful - and He has been and will continue to be faithful. God is not a drill Sergent, as a wise woman once said. He's not yelling at us, screaming, "Come on! Move it! Go, go, go! You're not working hard enough! You're not doing enough! Do more! Be more!" and so on and so on...No, God's voice is gentle. He is humble in heart. And His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

I have truly only scraped the tip of the iceberg here. God's Word is like a never-ending well, full of rich, life-giving water. I will leave you with a verse I continually go back to when I find my soul getting anxious and uneasy about life or I doubt God's goodness to me..."Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you." (Psalm 116:7)