The Work of Rest

Bear not a single care thyself,
One is too much for thee;
The work is Mine, and Mine alone;
Thy work—to rest in Me.
—Anonymous


Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. —Matthew 11:28 NKJV

Give all your worries to him, because he cares about you. —1 Peter 5:7 NCV


One of the greatest challenges for me is to actually rest in God. I understand the concept, I know the verses, and I believe God is not only able but willing to shoulder the load. But I find myself time and again operating in my own strength. I think part of the difficulty is that the kind of rest that comes from the Father does in fact require something of us. In the words of the verse at the top of this post it is work.

This is one of the great paradoxes of the kingdom, I think. The tension that exists between human work and God's work. Because we don't like paradoxes and tension, I think we tend to live either on one end or the other. Either we rely on our own strength to get things done, or else we sit back and tell ourselves that we are relying on God's strength. Both are too easy for us — not good for us, mind you, but easy. We fall into these patterns without even thinking about it.

But the tension is were we must live. There is something that is required of us and then there is something that God will do. What is required of us is the work of entering into His rest. This is actually a difficult thing to do because it requires us to quiet ourselves (this may be the most difficult work of all because it requires self-mastery) and to press into Him. This pressing in happens through prayer and meditation among other things. And the last time I checked, real prayer and meditation are not the easiest things in the world. There is a reason they are called spiritual disciplines.

At the end of the day, God's promise is that if we turn our minds to work on the right things, that everything else will follow. If we seek first His kingdom, then everything else will be taken care of. This single focus can change our lives if we can just do the work that it requires! God help us in this endeavor, because it is something we cannot do by sheer will power alone.