enter the rest

do you go to a church that encourages rest?  to be still, stop your doing, and cease the busy-ness?  can you hear that without a tone of condemnation?  can you sense the freedom in an invitation to rest?  or does it scare you..."if I rest, I might like it so much that I might stop doing...stop achieving, stop making a difference"

are we threatened by rest?  by the idea of stopping...being still...ceasing to work?  do we fear that we will be lazy? or miss something? or not "get the job done" that he has called us to do?
are those passages about being still, or honoring sabbath, or that one that says "Come to me all who are weary, and I will give you rest" meant for those ones who have worked hard and "earned" their rest?  Or is this an invitation for ALL who are weary, regardless of what you have done or not done.  regardless of your achievements or the fact that you haven't achieved anything noteworthy as of yet?

and what if rest is actually the path that leads to the true ministry?
what if healing that comes when we rest, and the knowing that comes when we are still is the true invitation extended to each one of us?
and what if the church could support us and even invite and encourage us to walk this quieter path?

the noise of the world
the busy-ness of life
always busy
always going
never time to stop
gotta check my calendar to see
when am I free
running off to something else
never seeing
never noticing
missing something...

it was hard to decide to take a year off.  if anything I felt like a failure when we left Laos in 2013.  the work/ministry that we had gone to do...it never really "became" what I had imagined in 2009 when we said yes.  I was headed to something great.  I was going to do great things for God.  I was going to help others know him.  and all I found at the end of 4 years was a sense of "not enough".  Failure.  Ouch.

and so sweetly, his words spoke loudly to my sun-scorched soul..."Come to me all who are weary"
Lord, is that you?  Are you speaking this to me?  Could it be that you are inviting me to rest?  I want it, but can I have it? I didn't really "earn it".  I never achieved what I had hoped to.  But can I believe that you are inviting me into rest?  Oh, it sounds so wonderful...so soul quenching.  Lord, I am tired.  Beyond tired.  And I don't think that I will ever achieve what I came here to do.  I'm a failure...

he makes me lie down in green pastures, he restores my soul
an invitation to come and sit with him.  to stop and be filled.  to eat and drink.  to lie down in soft green grass by a stream.  wow, sounds like a 5 star resort.  I want it!
but I don't deserve it

Come, ALL WHO ARE WEARY
and while I could still think of so many reasons that I could not receive this invitation, my soul had already clung to the invite.  I couldn't play it off "Oh, Lord, thanks for the invite but I am not quite done with the great stuff I'm meant to do here...I'll come next year."  NOPE, my soul was running and begging for water, and my pride had only to follow my soul-starved self

and he gives
He gives!  it wasn't all a 5 star holiday.  it wasn't all easy to just rest and have "nothing to do".  honestly, it was HARD.  Hard to know how to rest.  I soon found that I could busy myself with other things--facebook, internet, worrying, grocery shopping, etc.  the being still was new to me.  how does one "cease striving" when that was my whole way of doing ministry?  whole way of giving back to God, serving God, and dare I say "earning his love/respect"?!!

but so quietly, so slowly I began to be stripped of beliefs that just weren't working.  this idea that being successful was based on what I had done.  To think that I had something to prove to God, to others to justify my being.  and I came to this question "Can I believe I am worthy even if I have nothing to offer?"

the transformation continues.  the grace to be on a journey is greater than I could ever dare hope for.  and learning to trust that my fear of being seen as lazy or a loafer is not from Him.  To dare to believe that rest is an invitation to knowing, and thus and invitation to become.  and the story is not finished...in any of us!