Real rest is hard.

Laziness is much easier to attain because it is always about serving self.  I think we struggle to give ourselves to rest because we confuse it with laziness.  Rest is one of the hardest disciplines to learn, because we are busy trying to please the LORD with our holy activity, but true rest a quieting before the LORD. When we learn the rhythm of rest it is perhaps one of the most powerful weapons to wield. Rest is quiet and unpredictable, powered by a highly explosive fuel.

Stay with me because I’ve come to know this truth from personal experience.  I know, it does sound a little strange, but this is not something you want to gloss over.  Rest will push the enemy down and he knows it, which is why he works so hard to keep us busy and distracted.

 

The summer of 2008 began a season of walking into REST…reluctantly.

I have shared before about how I lost my job that summer, but there were a lot of other things going on in that season which created a really bizarre platform for the Lord to speak to me from.

 

My son was 10 years old and my daughter was 8 years old and they were blissfully enjoying the life of tweeners, dabbling with many new things.  While the pre-school years were hard because of my health issues, the elementary years were a whole different kind of hard marked by a harried busy.  The kids were involved in Basketball, Soft-ball, and jujitsu, while we were leading the church in another big adventure: Church Planting. We had partnered with our Denominational Conference to work with a new church planter with the hope of planting a new work in a couple of years. If that wasn’t enough, my husband had concluded that it was the right time to pursue some leadership development and was mid-way through a two-year course of study with Arrow Leadership.  I was working part-time and furiously trying to keep us all on track and organized.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That summer we sent out at least eight members, as well as the Pastoral Couple we had hired with the Conference.  I know, eight doesn’t sound like a big deal, but at the time our church numbers were around 140 people.  Those eight people made up half our leadership team and half of our children’s ministry leaders.  Those eight people were young, full of energy and passion.  We trusted the LORD and sent them off, but we felt their absence.  It was also at this time that our Worship Pastor resigned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay? So do you have a picture of the craziness?  Can you relate?

 

When I lost my job it felt like everything was out of control.  We left for our family vacation and I grieved my loss and tried to come to terms with it.  I wrestled with self-esteem and identity issues, battling feelings of betrayal.  Upon returning home I received a phone call from the pre-school our children had attended. Their assistant teacher had just resigned and they were looking for someone and straight up offered me the position.  It seemed like a perfect solution except that I felt this strange heaviness every time I thought about it.

 

As I was vacuuming one day, I cried out in frustration,

“What am I supposed to do?”

…and God said,

“REST.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rest is hard to give ourselves to because the enemy robs us of the joy and life it gives by spinning a lie that REST is unproductive.  Many people wear busy-ness like it is a badge of honor.  Other people value rest, but only AFTER the work is done.  We have an incorrect or incomplete understanding about what rest is, which makes it really hard to prioritize.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have learned that when God says REST it’s about communion with him. But I didn’t know that back then. He had to undo my vision of what that looked like and reconstruct it from the inside out. Demo always comes first, and for me that meant cutting down some pride and arrogance.   I had prayed prayers about wanting to go deeper and these circumstances created an environment and opportunity to step in, so I did…albeit somewhat reluctantly at first.

 

One morning I was reading and doing a Lectio Divina, which is a traditional Benedictine practice of scripture reading, on the passage of Judges 13.  This passage gives the account of the story of the angel of the LORD telling Sampson’s parents that they were going to have a baby, who would become a Judge over Israel. The scriptures record that they fell down on their faces before the LORD.

 

Have you ever responded to the LORD that way?  Face down on the floor before the LORD?  I had not.  I felt the Holy Spirit urging me to lie down on the floor, but immediately I found excuses to avoid the whole exercise.  I mean, the floor needed to be vacuumed, laundry was piled up and phone calls to return…the list went on.  But the Holy Spirit quietly nagged until I relented.  I went to the living-room and spread a blanket on the floor.  I stretched out, lay face down, and waited.

 

 

 

“Okay, LORD! Here I am. 

I was obedient. So what do you have to say?”

 

Nothing.

 

 

 

After 30 seconds of silence I was ready to crawl out of my skin.

  My spirit was antsy and God was silent.

 

 

 

“Can I put some music on?  It’ll help me to get…” 

 

The Holy Spirit cut me off before I could get the rest of my words out.

“No.  That’s the whole point.”

Oh.

 

 

The revelation came instantly.  It wasn’t that he didn’t want my praise or didn’t delight in my songs (we’ve already established that HE LOVES OUR PRAISE), but in my eagerness to please him I wasn’t always hearing his heart.  My time with him was always full of productivity.  REST was new…it was about being present and surrendering to him…allowing HIM to be productive in me.  I will confess: it didn’t feel right. But it is right. My only job in REST is yielding—period!  He takes it from there.

 

Communion–and by communion, I talking about our being with the LORD–leads to alignment.  I’m talking about presence.  REST is about aligning our whole being in the LORD, which is why there are some things that can only happen in REST–it’s like syncing your iPhone; you plug it in and wait.

 

 

 

“And on the seventh day God ended His work

which HE had done,

and He rested on the seventh day

from all His work which He had done.

Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it,

because in it He rested from all His work

which God had created and made.”

Genesis 2:2-3

 

 

 

Rest is sanctified by God—that means He views it as Holy.  It is an important part of the rhythm.  Yes, we have been ordained to work, to be fruitful and multiply, but not to the exclusion of rest. Rest must not be neglected.  Do it often and do it regularly.

 

The gift of REST is miraculous because through communion with the Father and the alignment of His spirit comes revival, restoration, and refreshing.  REST does in us, through the power of God, Most High, what we can never procure. Rest brings healing. Rest brings clarity. Rest brings hope. Rest brings strength.  Rest provides for the next part of the journey.  We need it. He knew it, instituted it, blessed it and then sanctified it.  REST is not lazy.  Rest is a powerful weapon in warfare, because in it is truth which extinguishes the dark and exposes the lies of the enemy.   Get a hold of that, because it’s a huge game changer

 

.

 

This is why the enemy wants us busy:

we can’t catch this blessing on the fly. 

Rest is only received when you surrender

your need to produce for him.

 

 

 

I have learned the value of establishing a rhythm in life that includes regular periods of REST.  When I look back to those early days of this lesson I remember feeling so overwhelmed by busy-ness.  When I compare life now, to life then I see much growth—that young woman back then wouldn’t have been able to hold her ground now if she hadn’t leaned in and learned the rhythms REST.

 

Today’s battles are resourced through REST.

 

I’ve learned that TRUSTING God is most important even if it means not knowing what’s next. He has given me amazing tools to hold the ground He’s given me, but I must trust.

 

Let me leave you with one more little application. Two and half months ago, late one night just after we had received news of Ryan’s diagnosis, I was struggling to fall asleep.  I was battling the temptation to worry and it’s always worse at night.  I heard the Lord remind my spirit to trust, to lean back and wait on Him—to REST.  I immediately turned my eyes off the diagnosis and onto Him.  I created a LONG play list of praise songs on my iPhone and then closed my eyes.  I didn’t have the physical ability to do what I knew would be helpful (to sing) so I pulled a compilation together that could sing for me, while I rested.  I used this play list for weeks…because every night was rough.  Let me say it again, today’s battles are resourced by REST.  It’s a powerful weapon. It’s a powerful weapon fueled by surrendering the need to produce.  It’s fueled by God.

 

 

Do it.

Go after it. Don’t let up on it.

He blessed it and sanctified it.

You don’t work for REST, your work from REST.