“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. 

 (Matthew 11:28-29 NAS)

I was driving back from Hastings (about 40 miles one way) to the office today and for some reason was feeling really tired. It happens periodically after a lunch and my body is trying to process the fuel and function at the same time; it does not always work well.

Fighting drowsiness or sleep when you are driving is a horrible feeling depending on how your body feels it. Just being tired is not a problem but if my body is feeling sluggish or my head feels drowsy then it feels like my body is trying to go to sleep and that is a horrible feeling. Usually, depending on how “it feels” I will often stop somewhere and catch a 15-30 minutes snooze and then I am fine to carry on. But of course there are times we want to get to a meeting or appointment or get on with the day and the temptation is to press through it and just get there. That battle, as I am sure many of you have had is a horrible, tense and very intense experience even if those “times” are experienced in seconds and moments.

The human soul is fighting a similar kind of weariness and sluggishness. Sin is a weight that can exhaust the spirit and suck the life out of our soul. It can create some scary moments in our life where we are at risk and may even find ourselves in harm’s way. Most people keep pressing through it because they think it is a normal experience in life. But there can be some horribly intense moments in life that can even scare us at times.  We can feel like we are drifting in and out of our life experiences and we suddenly find ourselves thinking or doing things we never thought we would do. Even if we don’t face “scary moments,” the human spirit carries the weight of God’s curse. Whether we recognize it, or not, our spirit struggles with weariness and vanity of life in a fallen world, and it is impossible to find rest for our soul.

When Jesus spoke of giving rest for our souls, I think he meant it. That does not mean that Christians are happy-go-lucky and have no issues. We can literally go back to habits and behaviors that seem to wear out our soul and make us weary. But Christ is the one who gives our souls rest; He can help us to stop striving and simply allow Christ to move alongside and bear the weight of those things that are heavy on our hearts and minds.  It maybe only a symptom of the bigger issue of our sin and separation from God but even Christians can wear themselves out, striving to perform in such a way that refuses to respond to the rest from God.

What does rest for our soul look like? The word “rest” means simply that: rest. It can also mean: a place of rest. The first place I think about is on vacation in Mexico, laying in the hammock out on the deck overlooking the ocean, gently rocking back and forth and listening to the birds flying around. I know those moments are restful. As the verse below would indicate, God’s rest is not an option for the alternative sounds very restless…

For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall through following the same example of disobedience.  (Hebrews 4:10-11 NAS)

Have you really found His rest in Christ? 

Are you living in such a way that reflects that you are living in the rest that only God can give to your soul?

Pastor Brad