Striving to rest

I had an interesting albeit brief conversation with a Christian brother today about rest.  I was sharing with him that my parents want me to go with them on a three-week cruise aboard the P&O (if you don’t know what that is, I just learnt myself the other day!  It’s a very big and luxurious cruise ship with tremendously huge varieties of perks on board).  I was feeling reluctant to go, despite the fact that it would be a really good bonding time with my parents, because I felt somewhat uncomfortable about the notion of being indulgent and somewhat idle for three weeks.  My brother lovingly reminded me that we all need to take a break and rest.  I think this word is both vague yet so specific in our minds, both taken for granted and yet contentious.  We first see it manifest in how God rested from his work of creation on the seventh day and invites us, humanity, to join him in his rest.  And this is the rest that was broken by humans but progressively being restored by God until it reaches full fulfillment when Jesus returns and renews creation so that it will be again.  But what does that look like now?  Do I look forward only to that rest and not really in the now?  What does rest mean?  Is it ‘taking a breather’, ‘taking a four month holiday to Hawaii’, or ‘spending a few hours just talking to God’?  Is there a wrong and right rest?  These questions are buzzing in my head (and I really need to ask Jade Schroers who just prepared and gave a seminar on this at Club Veg!).

I should not say these things with lightness as I really need to do some reading to make sure I’m understanding God’s word correctly, but the times that I’ve read about rest in Scripture, it speaks of a specific state (or rather, more correctly, a specific relationship between things): God is our God, we are His people, and we are enjoying Him in His presence in peace and full trust.  This seems true in passages like Exodus 33:14 (‘And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”‘) and 1 Kings 8:56 (‘Blessed be the LORD, who has given rest to His people Israel, according to all that He promised. There has not failed one word of all His good promise, which He promised through His servant Moses.’).  Passages like Matthew 11:28-30, which is so frequently quoted (‘Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.’), seems to speak of an assured confidence we gain when we ‘enter into Christ’s rest’; when we enter into relationship with Him we in fact find rest for our souls because they are now washed clean by Jesus’ very life.  Even the Old Testament speaks of this, though not specifically in Jesus, but certainly in the same God: ‘For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: in returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength’ (Isaiah 30:15).  The serious command that God gave the people of Israel in the Old Testament to keep the Sabbath Day holy (which just means ‘set apart’ or ‘different from the rest’) thus made much sense in this light.  It points to how it was meant to be at the very beginning, but more importantly, how it will be one day, as God restores creation to his original intention.  In this light, how should I rest now?

People keep telling me I work, work, work (not in the sense of uni work and such of course, but of being spent for the Kingdom) and I really need to take a break.  And I know they say this to me out of love and a desire to see me refreshed and better to serve others, but there is much joy in being spent for the Kingdom, for we know that our labour is not in vain, and, as Packer reminds us, those who are zealous for God gain great energy from Him to continue doing the work He has prepared in advance for us to do.  So, I could definitely be doing much more :)!  Of course, or rather, furthermore, God is the one doing the work, and I am simply a vessel through whom He brings Himself honour (yet how incredible that I should see the fruit and be so very blessed by Him).  I guess all I’m saying really is that I’ve met people and read about people, Christian brothers and sisters, whom I admire and seek to imitate, as Paul urged his readers to imitate him as he imitates Christ, because they saw the coming Kingdom, the fulfillment of rest in its ultimate-ty (what’s a word that means this?) as first priority.  Men like Jim Elliot and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, women like Corrie ten Boom, and many men and women I’ve met in my life, never took a holiday, but put all their energy and time into loving the Lord as living sacrifices.  Of course, this is not to say that taking a cruise with my parents is bad stewardship of my time, but it did make me think: is our understanding of ‘rest’ missing something?  Have we not really understood the link between the final rest we are looking forward to and the life we live now?

Hmmmmm.