come and rest

“Come unto me all you who are weary and burdened, 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.” (Matthew 11:28-30) What a beautiful invitation, and yet we rarely, if ever, take Jesus up on it.

Why is that?  Why are we so resistant to rest?  Why are we so hesitant to come?  Jesus gives us an open invitation into the life and joy and rest of the Trinity and we refuse.  Why on earth would we do that?  Are our egos so big that we think we can manage and control our lives better than he can?  Are we so prideful and delusional that we would rather sink or swim on our own than surrender to his care, direction, and control?

It’s nothing new; Isaiah and Jeremiah ran into the same thing: “This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy one of Israel, says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.’” (Isaiah 30:15) “This is what the Lord says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.’  But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” (Jeremiah 6:16)

What is wrong with us?  God offers us the moon and we settle for the darkness.  He offers us a life of peace and joy and rest, and we settle for anxiety, weariness, and busyness.  We’re a piece of work, huh?

 

131

O heart, be not proud and lifted up.  O eyes, be not high ad haughty and arrogant.  Don’t live on the oxygen of approval, affirmation, and accomplishment.

Instead, still and quiet your soul like a weaned child in the loving embrace of its mother.  Breathe me in.  Let me be the only air you need.  Stop trying to suck it out of everyone else, for that is what it means to be weaned.  Only then will you be free.

And all of it depends on me, not on you.  Always remember that.

What's above is a little adaptation of Psalm 131 from my time with God this morning.  It's a psalm I have been praying every Saturday for years now.  And every time I pray it, I wonder if I'm making any progress in the "weaned life."  There is still so much in me that I need to be weaned of.  I need to be weaned of the need for a certain response from others, weaned of the need to impress and be affirmed, weaned of my slavery to what others think and say about me, weaned of my captivity to results and performance.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  But, as the psalm says, my only hope for this weaning is in God.  So, I will keep praying and keep wrestling and keep trying and keep hoping that one day "stilled and quieted" might actually be the state of my heart and soul.

broken and contrite

“My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17)

It could be that my brokenness, desperation, and dependence are the best things I have going for me.  It could be that they open up great space for God to live, move, and act in and through me.  Thus, maybe I should embrace them rather than reject, avoid, or deny them.

Maybe they are an invitation rather than an intrusion.  An invitation to recognize the presence of God, the hand of God, and the power of God amidst all the chaos.  An invitation to share in the sufferings and vulnerability of Christ, and to become more and more like him.

Maybe a continual sacrifice of my deep brokenness and contrition makes good space for God to do some of his best work, because it keeps me from taking up all the space.  I am emptied of my competence and my adequacy and independence so that he can finally fill me with himself.  Maybe that sacrifice keeps me where he wants me and makes me who he wants me to be―humble, lowly, and dependent.  When we don’t recognize our great need for Jesus, we tend to take up all the space ourselves.  That’s why God will never despise an offering of a broken and contrite heart.

 

trajectory

down

down

down

empty

empty

empty

nothing

nothing

nothing

stripped

bare

and

wholly

dependent

on

You

an old invitation for a new year

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.  Why send money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?  Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul with delight in the richest of fare.  Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.” (Isaiah 55:1-3)

A New Year has begun, but God's invitation is always the same: "Come!" Could intimacy with God really be this simple?  Just listen to God’s words of invitation here and you tell me: come, come, come, come, listen, listen, eat, give ear and come to me, and hear me.  That's all we've got to do; the rest is up to him.  He’s the one who fills our hearts and brings delight to our souls.  All we have to do is come and listen.  Why do we make it so complicated?  And why don’t we consistently do what is written in these short few verses?  For if we did, our souls would truly live.  

What is God’s invitation to you for the New Year?  How is he inviting you to "Come"?  How is he inviting you to listen?  How is he inviting you to eat what is good, that your soul may live?

dwell, gaze, seek

“One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4)

I don’t know about you, but I don’t typically ask to dwell, gaze, and seek.  I’m far too busy asking for my circumstances to change.  But circumstances are fleeting; they are only the tip of the iceberg.  A lot more substantial things lie underneath the surface.  Maybe it’s those things I need to address.  Maybe those are the “things” I need to “ask” for.  Maybe I need to ask God to do a work in me that’s far bigger than my ever-changing circumstances.  Wouldn’t that be a much better thing to ask for?   

We all long for spiritual intimacy with God but are often resistant to doing the very things that can bring it about.  We want the result, but don’t want to have to invest in the process.  Thus, the problem spiritual practice is that it only works if we do it.  The spiritual practices work on us, not on God.  They make time and space for spiritual intimacy to be more of a possibility.

If we set aside time and make space to dwell in his presence, to gaze upon his beauty, and to seek him in his temple, our level of spiritual intimacy is bound to increase.  For it is in the dwelling that deep knowing takes place, it is in the gazing that our hearts are captured by his beauty and his love, and in the seeking that we find him—and are found by him—in new and deeper ways.

I suppose that’s why it’s the “one thing” King David “asked of the Lord.”  And we might want to do the same. 

O Lord, we just ask for one thing: help us to learn how to dwell in you, give us eyes to gaze upon your beauty, and give us a heart that is continually seeking after you.  If you give us that, we will know you deeper and better than our hearts ever imagined.

all things new

“He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making all things new’” (Revelation 21:5) The new that God will bring about, both within us and among us, cannot be commandeered, manipulated, or controlled.  It can’t be contrived or forced.  It can only be received.  It is a gift, coming down out of heaven.  Thus, our only job is to watch and wait and keep our hands empty and open, which is much harder than it sounds.

But in order to be truly received, the new must be fully taken hold of once it arrives.  It can’t just be seen and acknowledged; it must be lived.  Which means that our old ways of being and seeing must be surrendered and abandoned in order to give this new life room to grow and take shape and take root within us.