“Rest, the gentle kind that comes with a still heart before the Shepherd. A sheep that can close tired eyes and just sleep.”
Ah, it’s been a minute! I lay in bed today, before the day began, thinking. I thought about my best laid plans for the month of January. I thought about my plans for the year. I thought about life, and pace, and goals, and unmet expectations, and met expectations, too.
In the middle of this analysis, I was stopped. It wasn’t a thunderclap from heaven that stalled my run-away-train of thought or even a whisper in my heart’s ear, it was a simple picture. A mental picture and a scripture, followed by a melting heart. A quiet response of, “okay, Lord,” born out of tired understanding.
God uses so many ways to speak to us and remind his children he sees everything- including the tired child analyzing everything, under blankets, on a cold morning.
“And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” Mark 6:31 (ESV).
This image in my mind of rest reordered my thoughts. I went from feelings of guilt over all that lay unfinished, to feeling the softest and most extravagant love imaginable. There was the Lord’s compassion, for his disciples and for me.
I don’t know who else needs to hear this today, but sometimes illness, deadlines, a season of grief, or even a season of the most unspeakable happy require an interruption of rest. And it’s okay to take that for what it is. Rest isn’t a failure, but sometimes it can feel that way. The Lord was conscious of rest for his followers.
Tired child, relentlessly analyzing the “I need to…” and the “I should have…” there is comfort in this: those who love God are known by him. 1 Corinthians 8:3. He knows you. He knows your labor and your tiredness- and he invites you to rest.
When we rest at the Shepherd’s feet, in his word, upon his promises, rest becomes restoration.
