Some thoughts on rest, contentment, and joy…
“Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt
bountifully with you” (Psalm 116:7).
True rest, soulful rest in its most undiluted form, cannot
be obtained outside of the presence of God. David found the secret to truest
rest, contentment, and joy in the many hours he spent alone with God in the
pasture watching sheep. He wrote, “You make known to me the path of life; in
your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore”
(Ps. 16:11).
David was vulnerable with God and poured out his guts to the
Lord in the secret place, telling God his struggles and pain. He was being
hunted and despised, when he was promised to be reigning as king over Israel. He
proclaimed who God is in the midst of it: you are my Shepherd, I shall not
want. He proclaimed who God is: Provider, Restorer, Counselor, Comforter. The
outpourings of his heart acknowledged how he was feeling, but he filtered his
emotions through declaring who God is in the midst of it, and his response in
light of who God is was always worship, praise, and rejoicing, declaring who
God is among the nations, despite his sufferings.
Habakkuk trusted in God’s righteousness in the midst of
injustice. He was an example of one who walks by faith, waiting upon the Lord
to bring justice, even in the midst of seeing great iniquity persist. The
righteous shall live by faith. Habakkuk set his heart to rejoice in the Lord
and take joy in the God of his salvation, “though the fig tree should not
blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the
fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd
in the stalls” (Hab. 3:17). The Lord is my strength, my bravery. He will walk
me through places of trouble and suffering.
The things our soul yearns for cannot be obtained in lasting
form outside of the Person of Jesus. We need grace for the impossible – Grace
is a person, the Person of the Holy Spirit who works His enabling power through
us to do that which we are incapable of doing in our own strength. We need
comfort – He is the Comforter. We seek justice – Jesus is Justice. We need rest
– He is the Restorer of our Soul. We need joy – He is Joy. We need love – He is
Perfect Love. We need peace – He is Perfect Peace. These things are found
through connectedness to Him; through abiding and receiving by faith. He says
to us, “ask, and I will give it”. He wants to give us these things because they
are all who He is and He wants to give Himself because He is so good.
Weariness, sickness, and other hardships often plague us
with justifiable excuses in our mind to give in to self-pity. Self-pity leads
to a downward spiral of despair. It’s tempting and it’s deadly. Self-pity
landed Israel into a downward spiral of sin and rebellion that led them into
exile.
Paul faced sickness, imprisonment, hunger, and many other
trials, yet he found the secret to contentment. “I know how to be brought low,
and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the
secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do
all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:12-13). “I am filled
with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy” (2 Cor. 7:4).
Paul went through great suffering, yet he rejoiced through
it, because He knew God and received everything needed for life and godliness
in His presence. He learned to abide in the Shepherd of his soul, the One who
fills All in All.
Godliness with contentment is great gain. God provided manna
for Israel day by day, with just the amount of rations needed to sustain them
each day, and twice the amount of rations needed to carry them through the
Sabbath.
It is often through our weakness in trials and sufferings that
Christ can be most magnified: for when I am weak, then I am strong. Grace is
poured out in the times when we approach the throne of God for grace in time of
need. It has been said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
Those who make their dwelling place in God will go through
the valley of weeping, but they make it a place of springs. They go from
strength to strength (Ps. 84).
God will provide us with the grace needed day by day to
endure the challenges of life with dignity and fortitude if we draw rest from
His presence. Sometimes this truth is challenging to walk out in the midst of
the fiery trials, but the Word of God cannot lie and if we are promised grace
for help in time of need and the strength to endure as we wait upon God, we can
rest assured that we can press through, even if we’re barely holding on. All we
need is to touch the hem of His garment and we will find healing. Sometimes it
takes time and it is a process.
Sometimes I wonder what kind of men and women we would be if
we put just as much effort into building our character as building our outward
appearance. Sometimes I wonder what kind of miracles would happen if we let go
of controlling our ministry and spent more time seeking the presence of God in
worship and prayer. Sometimes I wonder what kind of miracles would happen if we
put as much thought into our prayer life as we do into our social media posts.
Sometimes I wonder what callings we would be launched into if we didn’t led
fear stop our feet from forward steps, and if we truly believed in God’s strength
to meet us in our weakness; oh how the world would be transformed. What kind of
revivals would be springing up if we made His presence our greatest pursuit, if
we lived our lives believing that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek
Him…
How easy it is to get distracted. How easy it is to give in
to self-pity or fear. How easy it is to flee from responsibility we don’t think
we can handle because we can’t trust God’s daily deposit of grace freely given
to those who believe.
We can only begin to believe when we spend time with Him in
the secret place, having our minds renewed by His Spirit.
Will we spend time getting to know the One who holds the
seven stars in His hand? Will we spend time with the One who wants to use what
the enemy intends for harm and turn it into good? Or will we get offended at
God and give way to self-pity and bitterness? God has always been right in
everything. He is perfect in all of His ways. God is complete goodness: nothing
in Him is askew. Do we believe that He is for our wellbeing? That to give all
of our self unreservedly to Him is the best decision because He is for us and
wants to give us good gifts and all of the spiritual blessings in Christ?
“The Lord is good; his steadfast love endures
forever, and his faithfulness to all generations” (Ps. 100:5).
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