Rest. We as a culture can barely define it. We’ve mostly prioritized the opposite of rest, glorifying the overworked, overscheduled, overcommitted, hyper-busy to the point where anyone with down time is caricatured as a lazy, irresponsible slacker who has likely forgotten a significant number of responsibilities. Hyperbole? Hopefully, but I fear it’s all too accurate a description of our inner thoughts and assumptions. When we do look for a break, we often search in the wrong places – a bottle, caffeine, comfort food, a trite and shallow novel, endless scrolling of social media, sports scores, and stock prices, binge-watching every drama offered on all the streaming services. No wonder we keep coming up empty.
I think there’s a disconnect in the language that we use. We don’t need “a break” – from work, from kids, from the stress of daily life – so much as we need rest. There have been heavy conversations with friends in the last several weeks, and more to come in the weeks ahead, and I feel the need for rest. One friend put it quite succinctly when she said that she’s surrounded by grief and sadness and hard things and she feels the weight of it all.
I’ve been mulling over all of these things for some time, so small wonder that Jesus’ words in Matthew 11 rang through with sweet peals of….well, rest: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Labor and heavy laden. I think that description resonates with many of us. Many of us would agree that we are toiling under heavy burdens of grief, sorrow, shame, and guilt. And here, at the feet of Jesus, we find rest.
Not an absence of work, I think it’s important to note. But yet there’s still rest, not for our bodies, but for our souls. Rest from striving for perfection, from exacting justice from those who have wronged us, from overachieving, from condemnation, from the weight of expecting human relationships to meet needs that only the Lord can fulfill. Rest.
I’m reminded again of a David Crowder song, “Come as You Are”. The lines about halfway through echo these verses: “There’s rest for the weary / Rest that endures / Earth has no sorrow / That heaven can’t cure.” Have a listen here if you have 4 minutes to spare.