Rest

In our culture, it is glorified for someone to be on their grind, to be perpetually busy. I can’t even come close to shaming these people, because I thought that was how I was created to be. If I wasn’t doingthen I thought I didn’t hold value, that I didn’t deserve to not be going. Maybe this was a byproduct of the theology of “serving” I was brought up with, or maybe it was just a default mechanism that came forth because of my own self-insecurity. Either way, I was convinced that this was the superior way of living, until I came face to face with what my reality actually looked like and encountered the Christ who modeled a life that looked nothing like mine.

The word Hebrews means those who have crossed over. The Hebrews had crossed over from Judaism to followers of Jesus. They crossed over from darkness to light, from law to promise. And in Hebrews 4, we see them being instructed to cross over into the faith-rest life.

“Now God has offered to us the same promise of entering into his realm of resting in confident faith. So we must be extremely careful to ensure that we all embrace the fullness of that promise and not fail to experience it.” – Hebrews 4:2

God’s desire is for us to fully experience this resting in confident faith. For the Lord, it was a threat, punishment, I might even say a curse for someone not to enter into this calming place of rest.

“I was grieved with them and made a solemn oath,     ‘They will never enter into the calming rest of my Spirit.’ ” – Hebrews 4:3

In my own life, I am in a crossing over. The Lord has a multitude of promises for each of us and I don’t want to neglect any of them, especially the promise of rest. I believe that if we can embrace this gift God has given to us, then it will actually position us to walk in our other promises more fully, but before we do this, I also believe that we must understand what the Lord is trying to give us.

When the Lord gives us a promise, that doesn’t mean we take them as marching orders. Promises are not instructions. I was not ultimately designed to make the word I received come to pass. He spoke the word to me and it will allow me to become who I was designed to be. My chasing to fulfill His promise can not become my identity. He’s not giving me orders; He’s actually trying to communicate that He’s about to put something in me so big that it’s going to manifest outwardly. Our action is usually seen as a necessity in God’s plan and that’s why it’s so easy to justify our doing, but in reality, striving to help the Lord fulfill His word actually moves me away from His presence.

Our wrestling and warring is really just a byproduct of our restlessness. Choosing to do everything instead of letting the Lord instruct my path is actually just lazy. When I say “everything” I’m mostly referring to our good works, which span anywhere from ministry, events, serving, gathering, etc. Spreading ourselves thin isn’t a badge of honor. It’s actually a billboard showcasing our disobedience. When we aren’t stewarding the gift of time that we have been given, then we aren’t living in surrender. Saying “yes” to everything around us isn’t the same as saying “yes” to God if He didn’t order us there. Our time is one of the only things we get to give back to God and actually giving it to Him is one of the hardest choices we get to make.

When we really look at how we interact with God, it’s surprising how often our behavior demonstrates that we question if He really cares. It’s usually not a question of if God can, but if He actually cares enough to.

Multiple times, throughout scripture, people came to Jesus for healing, sometimes for themselves and sometimes for others. The words that resound time and time again is “Lord, if you are willing, will you…?”. These individuals had no problem with believing that Jesus could, but rather if He would. When Jesus and His disciples were on the boat, in the storm, they woke Him up and said “Do you even care if we die?“. His own disciples questioned if He cared for them.

In this time of crossing over, I am desperately trying to become grounded in the knowing that God cares, He has promises waiting for us to step into and that the way Jesus walked the earth is attainable. It’s actually what changed the world. The answer for a world in chaos is a man in order. The answer to the world around me is the world within me. My only option is to choose rest, to fight a battle that I actually believe belongs to the Lord and to cultivate an inner world worthy of drawing from.

– Savanah L. Judd