Real Rest

“Real rest is more than stopping, more than taking a break.  It is a calmness, a stillness, of body, mind and soul.”
Loren Thornburg

If you’re like me rest is not something that comes naturally.  I don’t just mean vegging out in front of the TV or taking a nap although it could include those things.  I mean a real rest that brings a refreshing of mind, body and soul.  A space where you can really be still and leave off anything and let go of everything.  Productivity, busyness, and activity are so highly valued that we often miss what we need most.  Our bodies were designed for rest whether we like it or not.  I am slowly coming to see this countercultural truth.  The more I invite real rests in my life the more I find energy and life for the activities.  It’s not easy to be quiet in a loud and busy world, to hear the thoughts that come to mind in the silences and to endure through the restlessness that says you should do more.  Yet, it’s always worth it.  Either way you and I were made for rest.  It’s part of your design...so enter into who you are and find real rest.  

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.] Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls.”
Matthew 11:28-29 Amplified

Not only is this counter cultural now, but it would have been very different for the disciples as well.  A yoke is a harness that connects animals to a plow.  Often an older, more experienced animal led a younger animal so that the term also came to mean that of a student and teacher.  So when Jesus shared this invitation with His disciples they would have understood it as looking completely different than being the student of any other rabbi.  What He was saying was, “...I’ll show you how to take a real rest.  Walk with Me and work with Me-watch how I do it.  Learn the unforced rhythms of grace…” (The Message).  He offers this same invitation to you, “to ease, relieve and refresh your souls” to show you the “unforced rhythms of grace.”  Rest comes from two root words.  One means to cease and the other means in between or among.   It means to cease from labor to recover and collect strength and to be of calm and patient expectation.  Not because there isn’t anything else to do but in between or among all the busyness to cease and stop to rest.  So let go of all that keeps you from resting and enter His real rest.