Rest

I go constantly. I know I do. There isn't any denying it or pretending that it doesn't happen. From the time I get out of bed in the morning until my head hits the pillow, I am usually going about 100 miles an hour. And even when I am sitting down, like in class or at a meal, my thoughts, at least, are still racing and usually I am fidgeting and antsy until I can move around again. But mostly it's not the physical moving around and busy days, it's the emotional and mental craziness that is my life.

I got a pamphlet thingy from the IV office entitled Silence and Solitude. The title alone was enough to "scare" me. I don't like to think about my life minus the craziness or what it would look like to give myself a break. Robert Howe came to IV last week and talked about the Sabbath. I have a really hard time with the Sabbath because the way it was first presented to me was as a list of rules (this was not Robert's talk, however), and rules, although I like the structure they bring, are very stressful because rules get broken and that equals disorder and chaos and a failure to live up to something. The other problem with the Sabbath is that I have this notion that the world will inevitably stop turning and things will fall apart if I am not holding everything together every second of every day. That's not true, and somewhere I know that it's not...but I also like the idea, however false it may be, that I have some control over whether or not things fall apart.

Anyway, Robert talked about how the Sabbath is a celebration. In Ezekiel it also says: "Moreover, I gave them My Sabbaths, as a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them." -Ezekiel 20:12

Hebrews says this:
"The promise of entering His rest still stands...let us therefore strive to enter that rest." -Hebrews 1,11

I realized that by assuming that I needed to be busy every day of the week in order that nothing would fall apart, I was saying to God that I didn't believe He was sovereign and powerful, almighty and perfect. I was basically saying that He needed me to help Him out. Learning to rest is hard. Learning to rest is humbling. Learning to rest is renewing. Learning to rest is something we are called to do.

Psalm 23:3 says: "He restores my soul." It doesn't say I can restore my own soul. It doesn't say that my soul will restore itself; it doesn't say that things of this world will restore my soul. God will. God is faithful and merciful and He calls us to sit at His feet and celebrate the gift He gives us of rest for our crazy lives.