Resting

"Dear Vasco, in response to your question, "What is worth doing and what is worth having?" I would like to simply say this. It is worth doing nothing and having a rest; in spite of all the difficulty it may cause you must rest Vasco - otherwise you will become RESTLESS!" 

--The Curly Pyjama Letters by Michael Leunig

July at my church is usually called "Underground" because it's the period of time during the year that my church enters a period of rest.  The pastor and assistant pastor will try and take their vacations during this time, the Sunday service is shortened and simplified, and an extra service is added on Thursdays out at a local farm so that people who might travel on weekends can still attend church.

Knowing my church, we need rest.  

And it's not necessarily a rest from church.  It's a rest that involves purposefully sitting back and just communing with God without a thousand other things going on.  It's a time when nothing new is happening at church, allowing volunteers and staff time to breathe.  We're being encouraged to actually cut things out of our schedules (in the middle of July in Maine no less) and using that new time of "not doing something" with communal time with God.

Of course with work and kids and family and whatnot this can be at times challenging.  And it's not meant to stress people out.  If you get to the end of the day and are like "I forgot to rest oh no!"  Then you've got the wrong idea of rest and you're certainly not going to get a good rest in God if you see it as an obligation.

Churches (especially in American I can't speak for anywhere else) sometimes put a lot of emphasis on going going going.  It's like a church or a "good Christian" is only successful or fulfilling when it's doing something.  When it's busy.

But from the dawn of time there has been a day of rest.  God rested.  He put aside a Sabbath on the Ten Commandments because He knew how important it was to rest, not just physically and emotionally, but to rest in Him.

Rest in Him?  What's that look like?

I think it looks different for everyone, but I believe the same thing that runs through everyone's rest in God is the genuine desire to be filled and rely on God during that moment or hour or five minutes of rest.  There are plenty of people who cross their arms when they come to a stop and say "All right, I'm resting, fill me Lord," but they'd rather be doing lots of other things and then they burn out.

Resting in God, I believe (and I constantly have to remind myself of this) means that I have to put aside all my desires except the desire to commune with God.  No matter where I take my rest.

And it means waiting.  I'm not the best at waiting.  Waiting to be filled with what God wants to pour into you, whatever that is.  Like lots of things in the Christian faith, it's a walk, it's a processes.  There's no specific formula to resting in God.  But the results are certainly evident.  A renewing of mind, body, soul.  Rejuvenation.

A nice break from a busy summer.