Invitation

the REST of the week #58

Happy REST of the week from Beauford, South Carolina.

Have a look at this picture—I snapped it (calmly) this afternoon from my perch on the passenger seat of our Honda Odyssey as we travelled south on Route 17.

True story. No photo shopping. Promise.

Obviously, I’m still alive, so there must be more here than meets the eye.

Yes, there is.

Here’s the shot I got some seconds later.

And then I spent a good chunk of time pondering the invitation to rest in this bizarre encounter.

I would love to pass this invitation on to you (actually, there were a couple), but there are so many gems to be mined here, I don’t want to miss any.

I need your help here and would be ever so grateful if you would take a moment to click the comment icon and share your first reaction along with what your take away might be.

One word is fine.

As is a whole devotional.

Bring it on.

***

Follow up post after comments received:

Front row view of rainclouds in their larger context (Ubonrat Reservoir, Thailand).

After reading the insights shared in response to the truck picture (thank you!), perspective seems the best one-word title for this past newsletter.

Things are not always what they seem.

Sudden and unexpected circumstances can block your whole view, throwing you into reaction mode so quickly that you forget that there might be another way to look at the situation.

Of course, the more mundane, low key buzzing of worries tied to the ever unknown future can wear you down and divert your gaze just as readily, albeit in a different way.

Either way, pausing to notice one’s own viewing angle and to consider the bigger picture is a lovely opportunity to disengage from reaction and to practice the kind of trust that invites rest.

(In case you missed the pictures: the first one was taken from the passenger seat and shows a truck coming straight at you—indicating an imminent head-on collision, while the second picture, taken moments later, provides a side view of the truck that shows it’s being towed, so it is actually going in the same direction you are going, but backwards).

Krista Mainess commented that “Just because it looks like an impending disaster or an impossible situation doesn’t mean it is so.”

Exactly the case here.

Jane Stevenson wrote that “only God has the perspective to fully appreciate our situations.”

(And I immediately thought of the story of the Exodus, where God opens the sea and creates a way out, an escape from certain death/return to slavery).

Julie commented that “rest is inexplicable” and went on to point out that “It is a choice, a deliberate act of rebellion against the prevailing hustle. Sometimes life feels like this photo. We don’t have to wait for all of the obstacles ahead to be out of the way to tell ourselves we can breathe. Our Father gives us that permission. Trust is taking it.

Such a good reminder that rest isn’t reclining in the familiarity of the hustle rut. It requires something on our part—just not the kind of something we typically do.

Breathing in the midst of chaos isn’t only OK, it is the way to rest. God not only gives us permission to rest, he tells us to rest, going so far as to weave focused rest into the very rhythm of our week, way back in the very beginning.

I appreciate how Julie connects trust with us actually taking that permission to rest.

Alicia W. Patterson’s initial reaction (after “Yikes!…”) included these words: “Hmm. Perspective. God has it. We don’t. Might as well trust Him.”

Sometimes the situation is so dire that we know there’s nothing we can do but trust and there’s a profound rest that comes with total surrender. But, knowing Alicia, I can tell you that her immediate response comes from a decades long practice of going to God first in the face of tremendous crises so that she can also say:

“I don’t think God is mad at us for being afraid in scary situations where we lack perspective. But the more we trust Him, the less injury to our mind, bodies, and souls.”

God gets the process part of this and he stays with us. (Just read what happened for the next 40 years after the Exodus—account after account of panic, distrust, and learning all over again).

Trusting God is also trusting the process.

Experience grows our trust and ability to stay calm.

When I glanced up from my book to see the front of a truck apparently coming at us, I did not panic. I’ve been riding with Ricardo in cars for over 25 years now and I didn’t need to do any mental processing to know that if there were any danger, he would have long since swerved out of the way. Instead, I grabbed my phone and took a picture.

Krista reminds us that there are practices that make it easier, that help us strengthen our faith for “believing/trusting without seeing… by studying the Word, worshipping Him and RESTING in His promises.”

And along the journey, God is with us, managing the challenges in ways we might never even imagine—as Jane pointed out:

“God often is the vehicles carrying away the certain death vehicles of distraction that we so fear. And even though it looks like we are at their mercy, he takes those vehicles going the wrong way and even while continuing to be in the wrong direction to carry them away from harming His own.”

Jane concluded with this advice: “don’t get off the road of God’s calling, because if God has called us, he will open the way - even in what seem like impossible circumstances.”

As you move through this new week, may perspective and trust offer you a haven of rest wherever you need might it.

Until this coming Friday,

Alicia