How shall we rest in God? By giving ourselves wholly to him. If you give yourself by halves, you cannot find full rest; there will ever be a lurking disquiet in that half that Is withheld. Martyrs, confessors, and saints have tasted this rest, and “counted themselves happy in that they endured.” A countless host of God’s faithful servants have drunk deeply of it under the daily burden of a weary life—dull, commonplace, painful, or desolate. All that God has been to them he is ready to be to you. The heart once fairly given to God, with a clear conscience, a fitting rule of life, and a steadfast purpose of obedience, you will find a wonderful sense of rest coming over you.
~Jean Nicolas Grou (1731-1803)
If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be My disciples. As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
~ Jesus, King of the universe, and everything else… and a man under the authority of His Father in John 15
Oh beloved, it is true. We hedge our bets.
We want to find and hold some angle from which we can maintain some modicum of control in our lives. We, like stubborn little children still often seem convinced that the only possible path is to find and get our own way.
But like little children, we find that just about the time that we get our own way – two (at least) terrible things happen. Firstly, we have no idea what to do once we are at the controls of our lives, and we rapidly begin to fall into some tailspin. And secondly, the peace and rest we sought through the illusory gaining of control actually yields a paradoxical reaction. Instead of peace and quiet, we get anxiety and chaos.
There is an answer, and we know it. We gotta go ‘all-in.’ We gotta do it the way Jesus did it.
We know that we have Jesus in us now, and now we have to reckon one more truth true. That truth being that we are in Him. Said more simply beloved, there is no more “I.” There is only Him in us – and us in Him.
And this makes all the difference.
We can begin to rest in some very important truths.
He is now our very breath.
He is the One in whom we live and move and have our being.
He is the One both able and willing to do the work needed to make us like Him.
He is deeply in Love with us… so much so that this love can turn the hardest heart of stone into a stone of flesh that loves Him back.
He is able on every front, in every way, in every circumstance to bring about both His greatest glory and our greatest good… so much so that these two things are actually one in the same.
But, yeah, there still is this “all-in” thing. Yeah, that is the one decision we do indeed face. But here again, Jesus both shows and is the way through the problem. Jesus is showing us how it works and it actually is really easy.
Abide.
Move-out of everywhere else, and move-in with all your stuff with Him. And just don’t leave.
And, yeah, it really is that easy. Can we see it? Once we let everything go and simply cast our lives into Jesus, there really is no other place we would want to go anyway.
Perhaps you, dear reader, are one who has never experienced this truth. And for you, this truly is the challenge. But as so many writers through the centuries have said, it is impossible for us to experience the truth until we simply believe and take the leap.
So, can this writer preach for a second? A zillion people have gone ‘all-in,’ and zero have regretted the decision. And how does this fool know it’s true? i did it. And so have smarter folks like Swindoll – Yohannon – Stanley – Washer – Jeremiah – Ludy – Lutzer – Sproul – Wilkerson – Graham – Theresa – Bright – Tada – Thomas – Schaeffer – Trotman – Tozer – Nee – Lewis – Ravenhill – Elliot – Saint – Ten Boom – Bonhoeffer – Raws – Moody – Carmichael – Livingstone – Chambers – Müller – Spurgeon – MacDonald – Kagawa – Wesley – Murray – Finney – Taylor – Wilburforce – Carey – Bunyan – Guyon – Molinos – Fenelon – Lawrence – Luther – Tyndale – Hus – Joan – Assisi – á Kempis – Augustine – Chrysostom – Clement – Polycarp – Paul – Peter… Jesus
Dive in beloved. Take a rest from the anxiety and chaos. The water of Life is wonderful!
