The way I grew up and the way I’ve lived, you’d think rest was a four letter word.
Something about being from farmers and being a firstborn that shapes the frame up to be more about doing than being. About coming from people who measured the worth of their lives in the wearing out of their lives and when we first came to this plot of land, The Farmer and I worked twenty hour days and then slumped to the barn floor to sleep those four short hours right there on the concrete before we stirred again and struggled on.
Sometimes we held each other and we cried.
Sometimes we worked on Sunday and added guilt to the load we carried.
Some seasons can seem a lifetime and you don’t think you’ll live.
We realized it when our backs and the hearts began to break: Rest isn’t just a Scriptural suggestion; Rest is a command of the Creator who knows how He created our dust-fragile frames.
It’s a command, rest, and of the same gavel status as do not lie, do not steal, do not have idols. Obey and rest, and this is when you breathe and laugh and lie down in Love and the dust bones grow up a real life.
In the midst, with more to do, I rest right here and just see.
In the light, I can hear Him:
“Rest in Jehovah and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret …” ~Ps. 37:7
He speaks in His Hebrew and He speaks it as a command, twice over: Rest! Wait!
Just wait, weary worker, weary wanderer. All your travels, all your relentless journeys, all your endless seeking, it is over. You are at your destination. You have arrived. You are in Me. Rest here, in Me, wait here, in Me. I will endlessly revive you. I will endlessly carry you. Live here.
I am beyond time and if you rest in Me, you rest out of time, and whatever you are waiting and praying for, it seems but a moment when you lay back into Me.
I can hear Him in the wind and in the whirl and in the whisper:
Rest is a gift and you can because I gave myself. The world has its work and it is relentless, but you, you are the one who can rest because you believe what I said: “It is finished.” Smile, Child, and come to Me.
Enter into My Rest. Enter into the Promised Land. Because you trust in My promises, you can rest.
I can hear Him like a lullaby to the restless soul that frets and flails and flings hopelessly onwards and He rocks gentle:
Rest in the Lord,
lay back in the Lord,
lay down in the Lord.
Quiet, worries. Silence, clamor. Still, angst.
Tongue, just rest. Knitted Brow, just rest. Stiff neck, just rest. Clenched fists, just rest.
Hush spirit, hush.
Hush spirit, hush.
I’m standing at the sink watching the light fill the study when The Farmer slips his hands around my waist and rest is a word from the Lord.
3 Ways to Enter into His Rest Today
1. Say Yes to Less
Prayerfully consider each obligation and undertaking. In a Year of Yes, saying Yes to Less is how to say yes to His Best and His rest. Say yes slowly, carefully, prayerfully.
2. Keep a Fruitful Fallowness
As farmers we let fields lie fallow in pasture or alfalfa, so that the fields may return to greater fruitfulness and yield. Seeds lie resting in soil, before the growing. Fields lie resting under winter, before the productive summer. Babes lie in sleep, before the growth spurt, the growing of the brain. Rest is not mere idleness but all rest is doing hidden and necessary work — the work of growing strong and nourishing the deep roots.
Great and eternal productivity emerges the soil that has rested. Seeming dormancy is actually the work of significant development and prayerful pauses in the faithful work of our days is a fruitful fallowness.
3. Take Sabbath Seconds
In the midst of the day and the duties, pause to take Sabbath Seconds. While we carry the rest of God in the centre of us while we do the work of every hour, Sabbath Seconds refresh us in Him. Just a gathering of moments to celebrate the grace of now. A few moments to fully gaze on God in the moment. Breathe deep. Smile. Open your hands as a physical witness to an inner letting go… Gaze on His beauty. Take a Sabbath Second.
“Rest in Jehovah and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret …” ~Ps. 37:7
Part of a series on Rest:
Part 1: 3 Ways to Rest Today (and stop the push)
Part 2: For Days When You are Bone-Tired
Every Wednesday, we Walk with Him, posting a spiritual practice that draws us nearer to His heart.To read the entire series of spiritual practices
Next Week: Consider sharing in community: The Spiritual Practice of Listening and Hearing God. Over the next three weeks, let’s prayerfully consider what it means to rest before the Lord… .. We look forward to your creative voice, ideas, thoughts!
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Photos: Light filling the study….
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