03/30/2024
Saturday morning🌞 coffee ☕️ with Angel 😇
Yesterday was Good Friday. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday. So… riddle me this… what is today… what happened on Saturday?!
Perhaps there is a call to action for us buried in this detail of Holy Week? Maybe we are being call to rest, not just from something… work, politics, or the social media… but IN someone.
Have you noticed that lately there have been lots secular and Christian books and articles published? I think this is because our society has a collective need for real rest. Look, it is not a secret that multi-tasking, extracurricular activities, and productivity are king according to our culture. Doing more is rewarded in our workplaces and schools. In fact, that’s even the case for volunteers in most Churches! Most parents try to keep children continuously enrolled in extracurricular activities. A lot of pressure is placed on people to stay busy, check goals off a list, and produce tangible results.
The upshot of this is it has produced burnout and the beginnings of a movement towards ‘“slower living.” When I see videos of people pursuing a “slow” and “intentional” lifestyle, which usually involves cooking from scratch and trading energy drinks for tea, I’m overcome by a craving for a slow lifestyle. But when I try to imitate these Tik Toc videos, it only takes a few days to start feeling grossly behind on commitments for myself and my family. I can find the willpower to abstain from working on projects for a short time physically, but I can’t escape the internal whisper reminding me that there is more to do. Even when my body is resting, I often feel restless.
Read Luke 10:38-42. The story of Mary and Martha gives us a picture of a restless woman and a woman who is at rest. Martha is focused on work that needs to be done but craves rest. When she sees her sister Mary resting, she feels jealous and addresses Jesus about her feelings. Jesus advises her to remember that only one thing is necessary. What is the one necessary thing? Yo! It is Jesus’ gracious presence!
When Jesus died on the cross, he said, “It is finished.” The things necessary for our eternal well-being are already finished because Christ has done them for us. Nothing… not one thing… you do will add to your value as a person or to your family’s value. Having a cleaner house, working out more consistently, and striving towards financial security do not change your standing before God. Those things are important and good, but your only necessary “work” is to confess that Jesus’ work on the cross is sufficient, and everything else that you do is valuable to better equip you to speak Christ into your community.
Check this. As long as you allow yourself to be controlled by various things you feel you should do, you can’t experience rest fully. When you accept that there is only one thing necessary to have a full life, and it has already been accomplished and handed down to you by Jesus, you will be prepared to experience Easter’s sweet rest.
We live in a culture that's forgotten how to be still… how to rest. Our daily lives are frantic, and social media makes us feel like we're always missing out on something. We are constantly tempted to spend even the Lord's Day worked up over the stories in our newsfeeds.
Now, check this… after God incarnate (Jesus) had declared His work on our behalf "finished," He honored the Sabbath once more, just as He had at the beginning of creation.
In the tomb, He rested.
In essence this Sabbath Jesus spent in the earth was the last Sabbath of the OLD creation, which was marred by Adam's sin. So what the disciples were looking at on Sunday morning was the first day of a NEW creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in essence, the gardener... God... walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but of the dawn! Wow!
When we rest on the Sabbath, we don't do it in the old creation, but in the new… not in the world jacked up by Adam, but in the world renewed in Christ. We don’t put our trust in politics, social media, or earthly decrees, but in Him who became, Himself, our Sabbath rest. We get to rest in Him! Yay!!!
Andrew Peterson makes this same connection in his album, "Resurrection Letters: Prologue," when he sings, "In six days God made the earth and all the heavens/but He rested on the seventh/God rested/He said that it was finished and the seventh day He blessed it/God rested."
Lord, teach me to rest. I don’t find this easy. Not just to rest physically from work, but psychologically and spiritually from my need for easy answers, instant miracles and immediate resolution. Like a child with a fever, half-asleep in my father’s arms, help me to trust even when I cannot understand. Lord, I can’t deny what You’ve done for me, but I am waiting for so much more. I know that You’re the answer, but I still have so many questions. I’m deeply aware of the work You’ve begun in my life,
(but if I’m completely honest I get impatient for its completion). Today I surrender to Your apparent slowness. In the absence of easy answers and instant miracles, teach me to wait… to be still… to trust You when everything seems hopeless… to pray… and to rest in You.
Amen.
Have a blessed restful Easter weekend in Him!
🙏🏽✝️❤️
