There is something so beautiful about a soul at rest, when all the frantic busyness stops, the angry activity ceases, the frenetic pace stills and the soul rests-safe and secure-not in its own accomplishments, but in the One who steps in and accomplishes it all.

There is something so peaceful about a soul that has finally found a place of true rest that has contentment and peace even amidst the crazy busy pace of life. The soul rests secure in the One who brings peace.

The contented soul is a soul at rest. Life is still crazy but they are not. Life can be stressful but they are not full of stress, because they know the One who is doing all their doing. It isn’t that they aren’t doing anything, nor are they the ones always saying “no” because they can and their plate is full already. It’s not because they know what they are called to do, what their spiritual gift is, or where their talents lie. But because they have surrendered all to Jesus and He is released to fully work through them.

It isn’t that they do what they do in His strength, it’s that He does it in His strength as they live fully yielded to the Spirit that lives within them.

Until one lives this way they will never understand true peace and rest. Contentment to them will always be nothing more than than “happy with what I have but always willing to have more”.

When this peace and contentment comes, the soul will wonder and marvel over it. Things that before caused a reaction of anger or pain no longer does. Instead there is just a sense of His abiding Life and love.

The soul no longer strives against God to be god. The soul rests in God’s never ending ability to be God.

When we are striving against God, we cannot know Him as our refuge and strength. We do not see Him or accept Him as our very present help in trouble because we are too busy trying to do it all in and for ourselves.

Fear is our constant companion. We cannot escape it. We might call it something different but it is always there–that nagging feeling that we don’t measure up; that this is all for naught and nothing we do is ever enough. That everyone else has what we want; so we exhaust ourselves in our endless pursuit of rest. We wear ourselves to a frayed edge doing it all because we are so very fearful of failing–of being found wanting.

We fear this is all there is, so we gobble it all up in a van attempt to see if we can get more out of life–more from Jesus. All the while we completely reject His peace and rest because we must keep busy serving Him.

We fall into bed each night exhausted, hoping tonight we will sleep but our frantic brain and soul keep us awake with our endless to-do lists running rampant in our minds. We continue to add more and more things. We rehearse every conversation over and over, reminding ourselves how right–how very, very right we were and how incredibly wrong and stupid they were. All the while we fear the opposite is far too close to the truth.

We think if God really is in the midst of her it’s a different her because all we feel, all we see is an endless condemnation and striving, endless work and no help.

Morning breaks and it is all we can do to get out of bed and do it all all over again. There is no rest, no peace. But we paste on the Good-Christian-Woman smile and tell everyone to just “Rest in Jesus”.

And we’re dying. Slowly or quickly, we’re dying all the same.

How do we stop striving and know He is God when we have so many spinning plates? How do we rest when life happens at breakneck speed and will not stop? We can’t possibly get up any earlier or stay up any later, and regular time with Jesus is anything but regular. It is the easiest and most often one thing that continually gets shoved off the list because who has time for that.

And it’s not like He’s listening to us anyway.

Oh, dear soul, He listens. He speaks. He still calls us to come away with Him, to take our weary, heavy-laden souls to Him and find rest.

He can but won’t make us do it. He stands and patiently calls and waits. But we choose to let our own sense of self-righteousness and importance dictate, instead of confessing our sin of pride and trying to be god to us and god to God.

When we go to Him, lay down our weapons, confess our sin, He is so faithful, just and forgiving. And in that we find freedom and rest. Peace. A refuge. Strength and help.

And six months later we look back on our life in absolute wonder and amazement at the work He has done and we were completely unaware of it all. The stress is gone. The worry lines around our eyes are but a faint memory. The anger, the fear, the insecurity have been replaces with peace and joy.

 

Psalm 46