Entering the REST of God

Matthew 11:28-30 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Do I even know the REST of God? I know I have experienced spurts of His sweet presence that brings me so much at peace I can't move...but I know there is more. I want to ENTER the REST of GOD.

rest ¹n.

1. Cessation of work, exertion, or activity.

2. Peace, ease, or refreshment

3. Relief or freedom from disquiet or disturbance.

4. Mental or emotional tranquillity.

5. Termination or absence of motion.

I believe that it is possible to run into the Father's arms and STAY there. To FIGHT from this place. To gain STRENGTH from this place. Jesus said in Matthew that we will find rest for our souls when we learn from Him, from His gentle and humble heart. The verdict? Our heavy yoke and burdens are the opposite of gentleness and humility.

Come to think of it, the times I feel "heavy" and lack His peace--when I really dig down to the root of this unrest--I find pride, selfish ambition, inconsistency, and fear. I wake up some mornings with this gripping heaviness over me, desiring my attention and follows me around the rest of the day, waiting for the right time to distract me. The definitions of rest above indicate God's true desire for our souls ALL.DAY.LONG. Not just while we worship or feel close to Him...ALWAYS...for eternity.

My goal this week: learning to enter His Rest and STAY put. I am going to "Watch over my heart with all diligence" (Prov. 4:23) and learn to be aware when I feel myself leaving His rest. I am going to start asking Him where He is in that moment and where He wants me to chunk the weariness, since it is NOT from Jesus :). He is the best teacher if we are are available to listen and ask questions. After all, He did say, "Learn from me...and you will find rest for your souls."

I am ready to "throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and run with perseverance the race marked out for us." (Hebrews 12:1)...and I can't do it without His Rest.

A runner in great health and great endurance understands that keeping a consistent (and not fast) heart beat is directly related to their progress. The more they run, better endurance and a stronger heart beat are established. In addition, a runner cannon accomplish their goals if the their heart rate is out of control or too fast. In conclusion, it isn't that we discontinue to run, but run harder TO Him and FOR Him; and finally, the greater the REST we have in Him, the greater the victory.

I will find the rest of God by resting in God.

(Additional reading I ran across while writing this: http://meredith-thepenandthesword.blogspot.com/2011/01/proverbs-31-working-hard-or-hardly.html)

I This is my dad's piece of wisdom below after asking him, "I want to learn how to REST deeper in God. I don't want to constantly "run run". But I feel like I am addicted to it and it is part of my nature. Any advice??" Yes, it’s part of your nature – you get that from me – sorry! It’s actually a good trait if/when you learn to manage it; if you don’t learn to manage it, it will manage you! The old adage that “idle hands are the devil’s tools” is true, but I have come to believe the opposite extreme is equally dangerous if not kept in check. I’ve learned, while sin is a powerful weapon in Satan’s arsenal, he only employees it to deter the unsaved from coming to Christ and to lure the saved away from doing God’s will. I think the church has both over-simplified and over-complicated the whole meaning of sin. The way I see it, regardless of what the unsaved person has or hasn’t done, he or she will only hear one thing on judgment day; “I never knew you,” so in reality that’s ultimately their only sin. For the Christian, defining sin, apart from the obvious, drunkenness, lust, greed etc, is much more complicated and personal; for us being out of God’s will is sin – “…to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” (James 4:17)

I don’t believe it leads to us losing our salvation, but possibly some eternal rewards – “If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” (1 Cor 3:14-15) Paul isn’t talking about sin as being stuff that won’t necessarily reap eternal benefits, even the best Christians do things, go out to eat, watch TV etc, live their life doing things every day that seemingly have no eternal benefit, other than helping us to recharge so we can have the strength to work for God. The verses leading up to these verses are talking about building foundations, our life around the temporal things that ultimately have no eternal value. In short, keeping Christians busy doing activities, even “good works,” is another weapon in Satan’s arsenal and people like you and I always have to guard against getting off-track; it’s especially hard when you’re trying to build a career and pay bills etc. Busyness is like a drug; it can enhance your quality of life if you take the right dosage, but it’s easy to get addicted if you don’t guard against it. I think many are busyness junkies. They only think they’re in control, but they need activity – it’s their drug-of-choice!
I think I was becoming addicted before getting diagnosed and, as strange as it might sound, I still fight it, it just manifests itself differently. I have to have mom turn my internet off every morning until ten or eleven, till I finish reading my bible and journaling etc (in fact, it’s been off all day today) because I want to see what’s going on in the news, I want to read my email and do GMO etc. None of these things are in and of themselves bad or sinful, in fact they’re either neutral or good, but doing them before or instead of doing “what I know I should be doing” makes them wrong. But, I feel like a hypocrite giving you , miss “Jesus time” every morning, advice in this area; if you’re like me, it’s a balancing-act you’ll have to make adjustments to your whole life, but that’s not a bad thing, that’s life! Life changes, new job, a move, relationships etc, force us to rebalance, and the fact that you have been thinking about it, is a good indication that you need to make some adjustments.

Mystery.

The other day I told Jesus, "I want to be like Mary, Mother of Jesus, who did not question or fear when you came to her and told her that she would birth and raise The Messiah."

His reply: "Lauren, she never sought to understand."

*Lauren cringes and smiles*

I want to and will dive deeper into your mystery. Lord. Wow, how complex I make everything and how I want to figure out and understand the details of everything and everyone. Yes, this is a strength that God has birthed in me, yet can be used for destruction if left untamed and for Lauren's strength to lead. HA!

For example, every time I watch a movie or go to the theater, throughout the entire production, I am not merely watching the plot play out (like most), I instead wonder who is behind the scenes, how they decorated the scene, who they really are, how long it took to write and direct that specific encounter, etc. The result: (besides letting my brain's obsessions cause exhaustion) I missed the purpose of the whole creative production, and instead chose to dissect something that was never made or able to be dissect-able!

"Lauren, there is a difference between seeking my heart and trying to 'figure me out'."

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. -Proverbs 25:2

Conclusion? I will learn from Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who chose not to fall into the trap of wonderings but chose TRUSTING THAT HE KNOWS BEST instead of constantly questioning His plans. Instead, she SOUGHT out the GLORY of God and left "the figuring out" to the Lord alone. Because the reality is: God doesn't make sense most of the time. He is not always a "practical God", because (like we would hope-because that is usually safer! Danng it.) Did Mary, still a virgin and pregnant, make sense to the world at all? People judged her and thought she was a complete liar and hypocrite. Yet, she sought and trusted the heart of her God even though everything in the physical realm made absolute nonsense.

Practically: I will leave movie or people or God critiquing once and for all. I will leave the "trying to figure God and His plans" out! Instead, I will CLING to the Cross, where His blood drips over me, cleansing me from all unrighteousness, allowing me to THRIVE in His mystery. I will pray and live with a listening heart. God has mysteries waiting to be revealed every morning. He loves to play hide and seek with us! It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. -Proverbs 25:2

LOVE. It is scary. Real, TRUE love will take you into the depths and heights of the unknown mysteries and ecstasy beyond what we can see.  It will bring you to surrender, giving up the things of this earth that define you. Yes, we are human, but we were made for MORE. I want raw, bold Love.  Just as the infinity of the stars and deepness of the universe have no end, so does God’s love.

Growing up, I yearned to be an astronaut.  I wanted everyone to know my love for outer space and to someday become an astronaut.  I also have an infatuation with the stars, but what it boils down to is: I love to observe the stars. Looking back on my humorous ideas of astronautical escapades or my obsession with stars, there remains one problem: the thought of actually GOING into space scares me to no end. Outer space is a mystery, a complete unknown-yet glorious.

I also have always had a love for the beach and anything ocean.  However, when I go to the beach and hop in salty water, I only go as far as I can touch or hurriedly swim to the sand bar. And to be honest, the time I spend in the water produces an underlying sense of vulnerability and an eerie feeling of the unknown of what is going on around me.  If I were to go into the depths of the ocean—miles down—I would literally die before I even reached “true depths”. 

Here’s the kicker: God’s Love is DEEPER than any ocean and HIGHER than the highest heavens (psalm 108:4). But this IS how terrifying His love is.  It is utterly life—heart  piercing—changing. Our hearts were CREATED for this Love and nothing less.

Jesus, your Love has NO bounds. I am BOUND to Love.

You see, God doesn’t operate in our reality.  His deep love begins past the skies and even deeper than the unknown areas of the ocean.  We love to observe scripture and observe God’s love, but do I take the Word as living and breathing and let His Love literally consume me?: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only.” (James 1:22)

 “Salvation is free but living for Him will cost you everything”. 

Unprecedented.

Def: 

Never done or known before.

New.

Revolutionary. 

Epoch-making. 

Unparalleled. 

Out-of-the-ordinary. 

I am unprecedented.

The God I serve operates in unprecedented encounters. 

I want unprecedented Living Water to rain on us!

I was listening to an audio CD from Jennifer Miller (missionary my age). 

She had a dream of Jesus taking her to a clean, pure body of water which represented His Word.

He said to her: 

"I have many children who believe that they can wash themselves in the water of God's Word and they will feel clean. And I have many children who can drink the Word and it will strengthen and satisfy, but I have very few children who believe they can actually walk on the water."  

As He says this, He walks out into the middle of the water, looks at her and says, "Come out here." 

She said, "But i can't walk on water!" 

"Forget about the water, look into my eyes."

She was consumed by who He was and began declaring God's character out loud; as she spoke, she found herself standing in the middle of the water with Jesus. 

He wants to take us into the unknown!