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| photo courtesy of David De Lossy |
The last couple of days have been... slow.
After receiving an ice storm this past weekend and receiving over a foot of snow in the past 36 hours I have realized something about myself:
I struggle with rest.
I woke up on each of the past four days with this anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I think it all comes from the idea of not being in a rhythm. When I slow down and sit to ponder what happened in my day I am overcome with this restlessness that is unexplainable. I have tried to explain it a couple of times to people, but deep down I have an issue with stopping after I get home.
Ali helped me realize this a while back, so now I intentionally don’t answer emails or notifications that pop up on my phone until the following day because I know that I just desperately want to keep busy. I have tried to make a small step to resting. But, when the phone buzzes or rings I immediately wonder what am I needed for. I immediately rush with curiosity what I could do to keep busy and productive.
This feeling is not just for work. This feeling is the feeling I have a lot of the time in my walk of faith in Christ. I don’t know about a lot of people, but I usually have the thought that I should be doing more. I should sharing the gospel more, I should be building up the community of saints more often, I should read the Bible more, I should pray more, etc. While all that might be slightly true I find myself feeling restless and anxious to get out and do more.
Wanting to do those things is actually good, but we begin to overcome our minds with worry and/or anxiety then it reveals something about us that needs to be addressed. In some manner, this points to something that we believe in our relationship with God.
Aarik Danielson, pastor at Karis Church, said:
"A lot of us have busy hearts. Hearts that pump out as much anxiety and worry as they do bloog. They're always churning inside about what people think or how we performed today or how we can move on to something better. We sit around with this anxious feeling, like we're supposed to be doing... something. Something else. But what?"
I hope that this is helpful and gives you an honest picture in my struggles at this present time.
I have just begun to dig into why I struggle with rest, but here are some of my early findings.
I Am Needy
To be honest, I struggle with the truth that I am a needy person. We are all needy people, but we usually like to think of the people that suck the energy out of you as the needy people. We all like to think of the ones who text us too much, call us too much, or email us too much as the truly needy and clingy people.
I am a needy person. I don’t always want to see how broken I truly am. I don’t always want to see much I have fallen short of God’s demands. I want to be seen as mature. I don’t always want to see how much I have chosen to rebel against God’s law. I normally want to be seen as a young man growing in holiness. I don’t always want to be seen as weak. I normally want to be seen as strong.
The truth is that I am more broken than I will ever see. I have and will sin against the God of the universe in more ways than I want to believe. In the light of acknowledging these things I am a needy sinner in need of God’s eternal and brilliant grace. The only way that God can forgive me is that He gives me grace. This leads me to my next point…
My Busyness Will Not Save Me
When I grew up I believed that if you did good things that means that you are a good person and that earns your way to heaven. I thought that heaven is the reward for those who tried to do some good things in life and didn’t hurt that many people. Those things more line up with Buddhism and the idea of Karma then with Christianity. Why do I say that? Because the Bible says that.
All over the place I read that there is nothing that I can do that warrants eternal life, but instead the Bible is very clear that I actually wanted to rebel against God. I openly and emphatically chose rebellion over loving obedience to His law. If my works give me anything, they give me what I deserve: hell.
Now, I know that talking about hell is usually seen as fire and brimstone, but hell is not a theory. Hell is not something that God created only for the super-villains. Hell is not only a place for the worst of the worst. The saddest and more humbling part of all of this is that without God’s help I would actually choose to rebel against Him in every way so that I end up in hell.
My work will not save me. So, what will?
The grace of God.
Stop. Follow me closely.
Jesus’ works include a sinless life. Our works include a sinful life. Jesus’ works include perfect submission to God the Father. Our works include rebellion against God the Father. Jesus’ works include a complete trust in God the Father. Our works include doubting God the Father. Jesus’ works include willingly dying for sinners. Our works include rejecting Jesus’ life and death on the cross as unimportant and irrelevant. Jesus’ works include raising from the grave and ascending into heaven. Our works include calling Jesus’ power impossible and ridiculous.
So, how does God offer us reconciliation? He offers us all of Jesus’ righteousness by having faith that Jesus is God. God will give us Jesus’ righteousness if we have faith that Jesus died died for us while we openly rejected Him.
If we have faith in what Jesus did we will be given a new nature that won’t desire to rebel against God anymore. We are to repent of our sin against Him and begin following Jesus for the rest of our lives.
I have faith in Jesus’ works, not my own works. So, whenever I struggle with rest I am struggling with God’s works being enough to save me.
That’s a tough pill to swallow, but its important to know so that my faith and trust in God’s works might increase and I might rest more confidently in God’s finished work on the cross.
If we trust in Jesus and repent of trying to save ourselves, He is faithful to forgive us.
I am an needy sinner in need of God’s grace in every moment of my life, and I pray that you see that you are in need of God’s grace for salvation. Place any work that attempts to save you before God and place your faith in what Jesus did for you.
God is good and gracious.
Jacob Luis Gonzales
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