Let me tell you about something I heard God say to me in a LOUD and CLEAR message to my heart about five years ago. “Come away all you, who are weary, and I will give you rest.” God put a specific thought in my heart about coming away with Him the entire day while my kids are at school. Not leaving my family; rather, making my mind and body rest so He can tend to my broken mind, my broken heart, my physical body that is stressed to the max. Not to fill my days with a variety of volunteering, visits, and Verizon friends and family.
Oh, I’d start off well enough but little by little, I stepped away from His invitation for this worn out girl to rest. Instead, I piled commitment upon commitment. Here a little one. There a little one. So, I have ended up in the same place of weariness year after year. Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Left wondering where that abundant life is Jesus said He came to give me. In desperate need of rest.
Instead of listening to what God had actually spoken to my heart, His invitation to rest, I did what I thought He meant. Work harder. Work harder doing good things. Work harder doing what I thought was a God thing for me. Work harder in my home. Work harder mentally. Work harder on my marriage. Work harder at being a Mom. Work harder in ministry. Work harder. I mistook work for rest when what I really needed was to work at resting.
It’s not easy to rest in our world is it? We hear from everywhere work harder. Even inside church. Even inside ministries. Work harder. Work at giving our time. Work at giving our talents. Work at giving our treasures. All good things to be sure unless we have nothing left to give because it’s all used up. Instead of resting when we needed to rest, we work harder ignoring the symptoms of overload. There is no time, talent, or treasure left to give.
Jesus often went away by Himself to be with God. He left ministries. He left people. He left needs untended and works undone. He left them all behind so He could be tended to by His Father God. Then, having allowed His Father God to take His burdens and equip Him, Jesus would return to the masses. Return to the ministry. Return to His work. Then, Jesus would return again later to rest with His Heavenly Daddy. Rest. Return. Rest. Return. I see a pattern here. If Jesus, the Word became flesh, rested so He could return, how much more do we need to rest? And having given our burdens to the God and allowing God to tend to us, then, we too can return to the works the Lord has set before us.
“Come away all you, who are weary, and I will give you rest.” -Jesus
