Rest

Guess what I've not been learning?  

How to rest.

For most of my life, I've liked my "rest" to be in motion: running, walking, playing, swimming, biking, exploring, "making stuff", planting, meeting, etc.  Action.  Qualifying action.

For you master "resters", it's easy to see that this is counterintuitive.  For me, rest has always been just powering down into a lower gear.

And now I am faced with a hard reality for a whirling dervish, rest is a spiritual imperative.  Recreation and rest are so important, but they are not the same.  Recreation enlivens my soul and rest restores it.  

We need to be restored.  We need to be able to lean back in  confidence and know that we can safely power down all systems and let go.  We do it for our kids, we do it for our computers, we do it for our cars – we allow them to rest.  Without an intentional quieting rest our young kids get wound up and freak out, our computers build up clogging data (or so I'm told), and our cars overheat and something in the engine rolls over or cracks.  It's the same with rest-avoidance people; we get wound up, freak out, clog up with cookies, overheat, and crack.  No bueno.

I love the picture above and took nearly a Google-y hour looking for just the right one to post with the blog.  I needed a shot of a relaxed and engaged dad whose daughter was leaning in or pressing into him in an equally comfortable and "safe" posture…attitude…position.  This photo represents my goal; to rest – press in – to a God I cannot see in an attitude of "letting go" and trusting.  It's silly, but it is such a foreign concept that I'm getting nervous "am I doing it right?"  "am I a burden or a slacker?"  "okay, I'll rest, then what?"

Rest.

The first verse I ever learned after asking God to carry me in his pocket, was Isaiah 30:15, “In repentance  and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…"  Since my Freshman year at Georgia Southern, I've been repeating this verse.  And for the first time in all of those years, I read the next phrase in the sentence (without skimming it) and it was an indictment, "but you would have none of it."  OUCH.

So now Rest is the goal. Not "getting things done" nor being, doing, saying, listening, loving, or transforming enough.  There is no enough.  Just resting.  Because God has issued the invitation a few verses south of 15 in Isaiah 30:18, "Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!".

Does this mean that I get to lay around in my flannels and read and eat bon bons all day?  No.  It just means something that hasn't quite formed in my understanding yet, but looks a lot like the dad and his daughter in the photo above:  being engaged and intentional and "ceasing striving."  And I've been given a little help with that lately:  today was packed full of great things to do and cool people to do it with, but I woke up with a ripping head cold and headache.  And as far as running, my right foot has been so SOMETHING since I moved to Georgia that even walking for a short distance hurts.  No running, some hiking on earthen paths, no powered up walking.  Doggone it.  

I'd appreciate your thoughts and insights as I embark on what has become a messy journey of resting.

Brandon Heath's, Wait & See, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEFNQE76Us4.