The Wonder of Rest: God's Great Blessing

God’s greatest gift to us was Jesus’s death on the cross to pay for our sins and restore our relationship with God. This one gift would have been enough, but He has given us so many other amazing and undeserved gifts each and every day. I might argue that one of the greatest gifts right after Jesus’s sacrifice is the Wonder of the Gift of Rest.

Scientific research has shown the incredible importance that sleep and rest have for our bodies, our minds, and our overall health. Which once again demonstrates that science confirms what our Creator has said all along. He designed rest for us. It is His gift to us and something He knows we need.

We see this gift of rest come up in the very beginning when Genesis 2:2-3 tells us that God rested on the seventh day after creating the world and everything in it, and blessed that day and made it holy, or set it apart. Then in Exodus 20 when God was giving the recently delivered Israelites some important commands on how to be a new nation of His holy people, he told them to “Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.” He reinforced this in several other places in the Books of the Law and gave reminders of it’s importance through the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah as well.

Somehow though, over the next few centuries this had become a burden for the people. It had gone from a command from God to take a day to rest and be blessed by spending time with Him to a detailed regulation and restrictions that had to be carefully followed. This law of blessing had become a rule of burden. This is not what God intended and we see that in the words of Jesus in Mark 2:27-28:

Jesus said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. So the son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’

The Sabbath, this idea of rest and time with God, was not designed to be a burden or just another demand or set of rules for us to follow. God set aside the Sabbath and blessed it because He knows how important rest is for us. He knows we need it. We need it almost as much as we need time to focus on Him. The Sabbath was designed to give us the opportunity for both, and here is where we find such an amazing aspect of the Wonder of Rest. We rest best when we have truly laid everything else aside to focus of God.

The psalmist understood this as he wrote in Psalm 127:2

It is vain for you to rise up early, To retire late, To eat the bread of painful labors; For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.

Jesus invited His disciples to do just that in Mark 6:31

And He said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.’ (For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.)

Jesus invites us into this kind of rest in Matthew 11:28-30

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

Unfortunately, much like the Israelites, who had begun to see this time of Sabbath rest as just another set of expectations or rules to be followed, we frequently view it as an unreasonable expectation in our lives too. How often do we think to ourselves I just don’t have time for that? We even hear people proudly say at times, “I’ll rest when I’m dead.” If we stop and think about it, it’s really pretty sad. This thing that we need so desperately, rest and time with God, is the thing that will ultimately lighten our load, but we think it’s better, or necessary, for us to just keeping pushing through and ignoring it’s invitation. It reminds me of an over-tired toddler being told it’s time for a nap, yet crying, screaming and doing everything possible not to stop for the sleep he so desperately needs. He’s afraid he might miss out on something. There’s too many things he wants to do and maybe even feels like he needs to do. The adult with him though loves him too much and knows that he desperately needs the sleep. This person who loves him understands what he does not: taking this little bit of time will help him do and enjoy the things he wants and needs to do so much more. It is necessary for him and refusing just shows his lack of understanding of his own needs and the love that is coming along with it.

In Isaiah 30:15 God says this:

For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, ‘In repentance and rest you will be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength.” But you were not willing

​The loving Father is calling you to rest, to spend time with Him in repentance, quietness, and trust. Don’t be like the stubborn toddler who was not willing. Recognize His love for you and His invitation to find what you need in the Wonder of Rest.