Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.
~Ovid (43 b.c.-a.d. 17)
Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to Whom we must give account. … Since then we have a Great High Priest Who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One Who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
~ The Encourager in Hebrews 4
Oh beloved, it is true.
Those of us who have been called to the works He has prepared beforehand can find ourselves in a bit of a predicament. We are empowered by Him to do great works, but we are doing these works through a constraint.
We are human. Now fully human, but human nonetheless.
And, as humans we are prone to great loss if we do not pull away from the battle at times, and rest. The busyness has no value. The rushing gets nothing done. And, if we have been in particularly hot conflict, we are likely to be wounded deeply.
We have to get away. We have to decompress and breathe some clean air. The problem, though, is that when we get so wound up by the situations we have just been in, we realize that we have stopped doing the thing that gave us the power to move forward.
Rest.
Can we see it?
The passage above makes it abundantly clear. The main work in our lives is to strive to enter the perpetual rest that G_d provides through His Son. And now, this Son is interceding for us, and making the way for us to come away from the battlefield and to simply cease from our striving.
This fool of a writer has been through a truly wonderful, and truly hellacious six years in Asia. We have been fighting on the front lines of the Great Commission. There has been great fruit borne as i abide in Him. And, there has been great loss as i have tried to do things on my.
I have experienced demons
I have heard from angels
I have seen poverty that enrages G_d
I have seen beauty that goes beyond words.
I have been in conversation with my Captain and King most of the time.
I have witnessed hundreds respond to the Gospel of His Great Love.
And… It is time to come off the field for a time. This seventh year is to be a sabbatical. I need to decompress from the battlefield experiences. I need to somehow regain my balance. And obviously, the answer is Him.
So, have you been going hard on the path He has set before you? Are you running out of the human capacity to be successful? Oh yes, He will give the grace to get you to the next mile marker, but it may just be that that marker is a place with a rest stop.
Tonight is your night. Be ready to rest. Strive to enter it.
The soul that loves God has its rest in God and in God alone. In all the paths that men walk in in the world, they do not attain peace until they draw nigh to hope in God.
~St. Isaac the Syrian
