What exactly is "rest"?

I'm not sure how we got to 2017, but here we are, and God's been telling me to rest... Rest...Rest? Who has time to rest?

Rest is an elusive thing and seems to carry with it the connotation of being lazy or idle.  Yet the dictionary defines rest as,"The act or state of ceasing from work, activity, or motion; quiet." While laziness encompasses the idea of an unwillingness to do anything, rest requires the will. To truly rest, we must decide and follow through with letting go, stopping, or ceasing.

The Bible has even more to say about this, with God going so far as to tell us that to enter His rest, we must choose to trust. That the existence of unbelief blocks us from experiencing the rest He has for each of us. So the key to unlock this door is faith.

God says He wants us to know rest, but we must "be still" or"cease striving" and let Him be in control, according to His plan and His time. Life isn't meant to be a long road of striving and exhaustion. When responsibilities, or troubles, or just life piles up, we naturally try harder and work more, but we, also, too often, assume the belief that it's up to us to make sure it all turns out well. Yet, more often than not, we really have very little to do with that.

 Jesus invites us to come to Him and find rest for our weary souls. He's so aware that this world isn't the way He intends it to be and that it is exhausting.   That our hearts weren't meant for this.  But that, in Him, it can be different.  In Him all things are made new.

God wants us to be faithful, to trust Him, and then to rest in the stillness of His all-sufficient power and love and faithfulness.





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