Rest in Action

This post is by Shaina Weisgerber.

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

    He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters, 

    He refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for His name’s sake.
Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.

Surely your goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

As we have been digging into the topic of rest, I think sometimes we come to the conclusion that rest is just the absence of busy-ness. If we are getting rest, it means we are slacking on other things. At least for me, that was what I thought of rest. Until, I stepped down from full time ministry and did not have a plan ahead. I had this cute idea that for the first six months or so after I stepped down I would “rest” and then God would give me a new job, a new routine and I would step into that new season “rested”.  Well, it’s three years later and I am still waiting for that “new job and new season” to appear. I can laugh about it now, but rest isn’t just the absence of activity. Rest is so much more. 

Rest is surrender. 

When we truly learn to rest in Christ, we know that He’s got it. When we learn to rest in Him, we are no longer so worried about a timeline we have created. Sometimes we surrender our control in order to allow rest. Other times we surrender our will to receive rest. Oftentimes we surrender our desires to experience rest. 

You see, I didn’t want to quit my job and leave a ministry that I was doing well at. God knew I could continue to survive and function as it were, but He wanted more for me. He wanted me to experience true rest. He wanted less FROM me and more OF me. He knew I was doing way more for Him than I was just being with Him. I surrendered a title, a job, financial security, comfort, even friends, a lot of control, and future dreams. I wish I could say that it made sense quickly. It didn’t. True rest came though. In that time, not only did my voice rest, but my need to please, my desire to be liked or needed and lots of other insecurities subsided. In that time, I learned so much about resting in Christ’s sufficiency because money was tighter than ever. I experienced new levels of loneliness and confusion, but I found myself in an intimate and beautiful space with Christ that I could not have been in otherwise. 

Rest is obedience. 

There will be times in our life where our desire is to keep ourselves busy to avoid the things we know we should do. Maybe we want to avoid a hard truth, an experience, a person, or a consequence. Keeping ourselves busy makes us think that we can just get past that part of our life. When we force ourselves to stop and rest, we are actually being obedient to Christ. We are relinquishing our control and trusting Him with the outcome, facing whatever it is head on, WITH Him. 

Rest is worship. 

Any of us that have children know that our kids don’t have to earn our love. They don’t have to earn our support or our care for them. You adore them, you love them, you care for them. Their place in our families is secure. It is the same with our heavenly Father. We are not asked to strive for or earn our way to Him. We do not have to do so much for Him out of a need to be approved, accepted or kept. When we rest in His sufficiency, His grace, His love, and quit trying to prove ourselves to Him, we are giving Him our worship. We are declaring that we receive Him, we need Him, we could not exist or be anything outside of Him. We show the Lord that we trust Him above ourselves. 

I hope you can allow yourself to rest, knowing that it is not only a gift from the Lord, but it is a command. 

Part of this journey of sanctification, as with any long journey, is rest. One cannot continue on a journey without proper rest. The goal isn’t to be so busy today that we lose sight of forever. Our eternal wellness is secure in Christ and our present wellness is dependent on our resting in Christ. 

Be blessed friends, as you rest in Him. 

Shaina Weisgerber is a wife and mom. The W’s live in the panhandle of Texas. She works in education and enjoys leading worship, being with her family, and keeping a simple life. Through many changes over the years, she still doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up, but she loves encouraging others through her writing and sharing of her own experiences at Sycamore & Sparrow on Instagram, Facebook, and her blog. 

www.sycamoresparrow.wordpress.com

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash