Rest - Pt 1

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. (Psalm 127:1-2 ESV).

Some of you have been following my most recent health saga. I really don’t have any diagnosis or prognosis yet; and, I won’t be able to see the cardiologist until another test is completed on June 25th. Something is definitely different. The symptoms have radically altered my typical routine. As you may have known, or guessed by now, I am not one to “sit” very well. If I am not doing something I can become uneasy. It makes me feel as though I’m wasting time to rest. You can imagine my consternation at being forced into inactivity and even a nap on most days. Hopefully that will be fixed soon! However, this situation has served to remind me that God has designed all of us in such a way that we require rest. And the Bible provides some pretty significant foundations for rest. In the next few days I will examine a few of those. They will give us some guidance and encourage those of you, like me, who feel anxious about “wasting time.” The picture I’ve included with today’s devotional was taken in the fall of the year beside a small waterfall in the Smoky Mountains. I’ve never felt more relaxed than those times I’ve just sat next to these quiet, gurgling streams in the mountains. However, these periodic travels are not nearly enough for any of us. Our reading today clearly teaches us that God created us in need of daily sleep. I have always found that quite frustrating. I hate sleep. I find sleep boring. Yet God created all of us so that we would need to sleep one-third of our lives! There has got to be a message in that. The gist of our reading today is pretty much the same. According to this text, sleep is a gift from God and the gift is often spurned by anxious toil. Peaceful sleep is the opposite of anxiety. God does not want his children to be anxious, but to trust him. So, I conclude that God made sleep as a continual reminder that we should not be anxious, but should rest in him like a little baby. He created sleep to make sure we would have a daily reminder we are not God. Our work is not decisive in running the world. God’s work is decisive. Sleep is foundational. It is a pointer. And I think the real message is that we ought not think so much of ourselves as to think we are in any way essential to the world. We are like a little baby a third of our life. And, God will take care of us. Get a little rest!