The Rested Soul

 

All Scripture quotes are NKJV

The past five years have left many of us feeling weary and burdened. Thankfully, God promises rest for the weary soul – but what does that look like in our daily lives? It doesn’t mean that Christians are exempt from hardship or that life will suddenly become easy.  But it does mean that God will be WITH US through it all.

I want to explore scriptures that illuminate God’s promise of rest:

Matthew 11:28 says, 'Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. '

You who labor and are heavy laden describes the Jews as suffering under a load of religious responsibilities laid on them by priests, rabbis, scribes and Pharisees.  Given the level of expectations placed upon Jews who were expected to follow the law (Torah), it was no doubt a very difficult way of living.  There were 613 laws that they were expected to follow to the letter.  If they did not, there was always (seemingly) a Pharisee keeping watch to lay the smack down on them if they were observed not following the law. 

In our time, we have a lot of stress about doing what we are required to do too.  Not necessarily following the letter of the law as the Jews were in Biblical times, although we do have to follow the laws of our country and there are police constantly patrolling to enforce the law; we are not feeling the load of doing so.  No, however, we are under a lot of stress because of other things in our life.

Whether it’s not having enough money to pay the bills, our kids are teenagers (enough said there) or just about anything else that goes on in our life, we can be very stressed out.

Jesus calls to us in the same way that He did in Matthew 11:28.  If we are feeling weary from all the stress and other burdens we have, Jesus promises us to give us rest.

Psalm 23:1-2 helps give us some guidance to follow Jesus with.  It says: 'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.'

When we have received Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and abide in Him, we must humble ourselves and start living our lives for Him.  This means serving Him and allowing Him to have control of our lives.

When we turn control of our lives over to Jesus, we can readily recognize how He is the shepherd of our souls.  Knowing that, we can readily trust that He is going to meet our every need, and we will never be in need or want.

King David, who wrote this Psalm was a shepherd a long time before he ended up being King of Israel. Since he had been a shepherd, he knew fully how much sheep needed the shepherd to take them to water, make sure they had food and to protect them from the many predators that would like to have a lamb chop for dinner.  Likewise, we need to allow Jesus to have control over our lives as well.  We can and should allow Him to have control over us and believe that He is going to provide exactly what we need when we need it. David came to refer to God as Lord, because of the life experiences he had as a shepherd, helped him to realize that God was his shepherd and Lord of his life.

We know this because of what 2 Peter 1:2-3 says: ‘Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, '

The Apostle Peter writes here that because of Jesus’ divine power, He has given to us all things that we need to live.  Additionally, He has also given to us what we need to have for godliness too.  Many people will quote this scripture and rest in it with confidence in Him.  And they well should, however, many tend to forget the last part of that Scripture, where it says, “through our knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue.”

Those of us who forget to be mindful of that would do well to have a good understanding of what it means. You see, we must know Him as our Lord and Savior to allow Him to meet our needs.  It’s through our knowing Him as our Lord and Savior that He will be our Shepherd, our provider, because He gets the glory and honor for doing so.  We must fully rely on Him to meet our every need, which the Bible promises He will do.  Some people have said that He didn’t meet their every need, but my experience has been that I got wants confused with needs.  Jesus will meet our need, but He doesn’t necessarily meet our wants, unless it’s in His will to do so.  I can honestly say that He has indeed provided some of my wants too over the years, but that’s a beyond what I’m writing about here.

Many say these day’s that God will not give us more than we can handle.  Let us take an example from what King David wrote.  Know that any disturbance or intruder scares sheep. They are very fearful animals, and they cannot lie down unless they feel totally secure.  The wise shepherd takes a great deal of care making sure his flock is not scared.  In doing so, he makes them to lie down in green pastures.

Our God takes abundant care of us as our shepherd.  He cares for us when we are afraid and unable to rest securely. The Psalmist wrote in Psalms 56:3 - 'Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.' God has such great care for us, He is concerned whenever we are afraid.  He has taught us that we can trust Him to do what’s right and good for us. 

Sheep are afraid of fast-flowing streams, so the shepherd takes care to lead his flock to still waters where they will have their fears soothed.  God’s provision for us is to provide the still waters we need to be calmed and have the assurance we need to proceed in where He leads us to.

When God lead Israel out of Egypt and eventually into the promised last, Moses told Him that he would not lead Israel unless He went with them.  It was an amazing task to have to perform and Moses, despite how much he had seen God do for Israel up to that point, he still knew he needed to have God to continue to lead them.  God assured Moses in Exodus 33:14 - 'And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”'

Interestingly, the Hebrew word for presence literally means “my face.” This extraordinarily promise of God to His people was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus.

Here again, God promised rest for His people.  In this passage of Scripture, it refers to the land of Canaan, the Promised Land, when the conquest would be over, and the land could be enjoyed by the Israelites.  Moses even dared to say that the Presence of the Lord amid His people was the only acceptable condition for further advance into the Promise Land. Only the Lord’s Presence would demonstrate to surrounding nations that Israel’s deliverance was really the work of the true and merciful God.

Would that we take the attitude of Moses into our daily lives.  Would that we had the ability to say to our Lord our God that if He didn’t with us, we would not go further. Where would our lives be and what trials would we have avoided if we took the time to tell God that if He didn’t go with us, we aren’t going further?  It’s truly amazing how things may have been different if we took the time to ask Him for His will and not go one step farther until we know, and He goes will us.  What a load what would take off us. 

Even if we have stepped out without the Lord’s guidance and made some bad choices, we can still rely on Him to direct us when we are ready to listen to him. As Isaiah 40:31 says - 'But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.'

As we seek Him for His direction after we have worn ourselves out going about things our way, we can stop and seek after Him and wait for His direction.  He will renew our strength; take away our weariness and enable us to continue in the direction that He has for us.

My hope in your reading this is that you will come to realize that God is for us.  He has a way that He intends for us to go in this life.  We all have strayed from the path at one point or another.  Others haven’t even gotten on their path yet, even late in life. But God still has a plan for your life and He wants to use you for His glory.

When we let go of our will and take hold of His through His salvation.  He will guide us into things we never imagined and also help our weary soul to rest through it all.