I’m enjoying a fabulous family vacation in Horseshoe Bay, where we are surrounded by palm trees, flowing fountains of all sizes, hill country green, the sound of chirping birds and the sight of gawking parrots. Yesterday we began the morning with a fun family breakfast in the meditation gardens, nestled in pools dotted with Lilly pads and rock fountains, decorated with an occasional turtle. Restful right?
It’s remarkable what is required to rest, and I’m not talking about finding an extravagant, secluded location. Rest runs much deeper than a break from work; it’s more than physical. Unfortunately, taking a day off, or a vacation is considered pretty virtuous in itself. The overbearing work ethic of the American workforce drives us to taking days off but not to rest.
The Unrested Church
The Church is no exception to this truncated view of rest. We have been willingly swept along in this vocational tide of overworking and under resting. We are told that, after creating all things in six days, God rested on the seventh and set it apart. Why did the omnipotent creator of all things rest? Because he was exhausted? Surely not. Augustine reminds us that “Thou ever workest and are ever at rest.” In a sense, God always works and always rests. What, then, was unique about his seventh day rest? That it wasn’t rest, as we think of it. It was completion. Like an artist rests from his creative work when it is finished, God stood back from his completed creation and “rested”, not in exhaustion but in admiration!
How should this understanding of God’s rest reconfigure our understanding of rest? Like God, we are created to both work and rest, though in drastically shorter measures. In fact, we work, not to rest, but work from our rest. Not our weekend, a deeper rest. Like God, we are meant to expience rest at all times, to be “ever at rest.” How? Our rest is found in God’s paradoxical, continual work-rest. How does God both rest and work? Augustine says it is because He is himself rest. God is rest. He is unwaning repose, never in short supply, fully at peace, come what may, because he was, is, and is to come. Eternally present, omnipotent control, overflowing goodness, always working, ever resting in His consummate self.
Recovering our Rest
Our rest, constant and enduring, is found in Him. We can rest, come what may, because he is rest and he is for us. We need not worry, fret, or overwork because God offers us himself, not a day off. This rest comes to us, sweetly, in Christ. Remember that Gods genesis rest was because he had completed creation. We can rest now because he has completed new creation. In Christ we are complete, in need of nothing else. Divine peace, rest, and joy are ours, if we will have them. But alas, we will not. We prefer busy notoriety, overworked importance, and anxious control over complete provision of rest in Christ.
As we prepared to leave for vacation, I was stressed. Trying to rest I was unrested. Trying to time our departure just right, I embraced anxious control over peaceful providence. Peace was thwarted by chaotic children, when Rest was standing by with his arms wide open. I repented and returned to Rest. His peace is much better than my fabricated peace. His rest transcends circumstances. His rest is precisely what we all need, and may possess, if we will repent and return. In the words of Augustine, “Our souls are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”
This series is taken from my personal diary during the first couple of years of church planting. The entries range from painfully raw to joyfully visionary. I hope they bring encouragement to anyone who reads them, especially church planters.
