Rest

The way God gets my attention is by repeating things. For the past several months the word REST seemed to pop up here and there, over and over again. As I turned the radio on, it may be the word just being sung. Or REST may be the point of a daily devotion. One night I awakened around 2 am and the first word that came to my conscience thoughts was REST.

You know, after the word is repeated so many times, I do actually get the point.

The point being, God wants me to know about REST.

My search for the meaning of REST started with asking God what it was He wanted me to learn. He was pretty quiet in giving an answer. Using the computer, I then turned to searching the Bible using biblegateway.com. On that website after typing in the word REST, I found there were over 350 references to REST, RESTORATION, and RESTORING. Since I seemed to be hearing just the word REST, I narrowed my search to verses containing that word and no variations of it.

The first 10 verses in the Bible that have the word REST all pertain to working and then taking time to REST. This day should be considered holy, was referred to as the Day of Atonement, and had certain conditions assigned to it. My God Nudge to pursue REST didn’t seem to be answered from these verses.  I quickly scanned the next set of verses and they didn't seem to be the answer I was looking for either.  So I quit reading.

And then one Sunday morning in church during worship, I had my God Nudge answered. God totally talked to me and I quickly grabbed my journal and I wrote this down:

REST=being able to get to a point of focus and peace with God despite the noise, distractions and problems at that very moment. Even when surrounded by evil, being able to find God and focus on Him.

It was like a breath of fresh air receiving that definition. And then I was led to Matthew 11:28 from The Message. How about this!

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me, get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real REST. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

The key words that jumped out at me from the definition I got and the Matthew verse would be: focus, find, get away, walk, watch, and keep company.

All verbs.

All action words.

All are choices.

This seemed to be the answer. 

By pursuing God, choosing to focus on Him, making a choice to get away with Him, walking and watching Him will bring me REST.

Once I have REST…none of the noises of this life will distract me.

I love that! And I love how He pursued me by repeatedly putting that word in my life. He wants me to have REST.

Amazing!