Finding rest in troubled times

We had a church day out to the beach the other weekend, and back when I was asking Glyn Blaize to come to speak, I thought the idea of 'rest' would be a good theme. It proved to be a very timely message as we went through a really difficult time of loss just before the day. Originally I had envisaged receiving the message from a perspective of busyness, and actually I found myself hearing it from a place of grief and trouble.

I am really thankful for Glyn's message. You can hear it here but these are my thoughts and what I took from it.

The passage Glyn chose, Matthew 11:25-28, had been sent to me by a friend a few days before who knew I was going through a tough time. Jesus' promise of rest is so vital to us at any time, but especially when you feel weary in your spirit. Glyn encouraged us that rest is holding onto God, knowing that He provides. In the story of creation in Genesis, God makes rest a priority for us. He fits it into our natural rhythm of life. Yet in our culture, we seem to binge-work and then binge-rest (I got that from Tim Chester's book on Busyness which again is massively helpful). We think somehow that to achieve rest we need to find a very quiet place of solace and just escape from everybody. But realistically, how often can we do that in a year? Whether you're a full time professional or a busy mum, there isn't much time in the day when you don't have demands upon your time. If we wait for that time alone in solitude before we can achieve rest or even just time with God, then it just isn't going to happen. We'll be frazzled and we will never feel the rest that God intended.

We need to get our rhythm of work and rest right, as a basic discipline, and then whenever sorrow or trouble comes along, we already have some space in the day or the week where we can cast it back onto the Lord. We need to take God's command to rest as seriously as we take the other commandments not to murder or steal.

Ultimately we can rest because we know that Jesus has won for us a great and eternal salvation. We can rest because we know that one day He will wipe every tear from our eyes (Revelation 21). We can rest because we know that whatever we go through now is a light and momentary affliction which achieves for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. (2 Corinthians 4:17).