Restless

the REST of the week #83 (reprint of #18-Struggle)

It’s the rest of the week. Does it ever feel like rest is impossible?

Lake Junaluska, North Carolina

Rest is like punctuation and spacing in a sentence.

Canyouimaginetryingtoreadabookwithoutpunctuationandspacing

The rest symbol in music pauses the flow of music, creating space for silence that is as important to the overall beauty of a piece as the sounds before and after that pause.

Exercise repetitions are organized into sets, because the rest intervals are what determine how the body builds strength and/or endurance.

Rest. It's what this newsletter is all about. 

But what we rest from is also important and the tango between work and rest sheds light on something helpful to notice.

There would be no content to a book made up only of spaces and punctuation.

While silence may be music to your ears, notes are necessary to making music.

And when it comes to working out, As a physical therapist, let me assure you that bed rest wreaks havoc on your physical health and conditioning.

So, here we are at the rest of the week where I invite us to pause and rest. 

But I want to acknowledge that there may be some processes we are in right now that make resting difficult or even impossible.

If there are some things/feelings/circumstances you are aching to rest from, but can't quite let go, or if you don't know how to trust God in a way that brings relief, consider these two experiences from the life of Jesus (and notice what's going on with his disciples at the same time). 

#1 Jesus can sleep through anything. (Mark 4:35-41)

After a very long day of teaching crowds of people outside, Jesus' disciples push off into the lake and Jesus settles down in the stern of the boat, falling fast asleep. 

Jesus is apparently too exhausted to wake from the furious squall that sweeps through the ravines on either side of the lake. 

Nothing can rouse him--not a reeling boat, not the violent waves swashing over and through the boat, nor the noisy sky belching out thunder after every lightning strike.

Oh--yes, there was one thing to rouse him: the voices of his terrified disciples yelling:

“Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

He gets up, completely unafraid, at perfect peace.

He speaks to the elements and everything becomes calm.

Why wasn't he afraid? Did he know it wasn't his time yet? Was his trust in his Father, God, so complete that he felt no fear? Was it because he knew he could calm the storm and save himself?

He questions the disciples about their fear and the disciples are lost in a wide-eyed wonder (aware of all the Hebrew scripture hyperlinks here, and processing that this means Jesus really, really is the Messiah). 

I believe that: 

Jesus knows who he is, is sure of his calling, and has complete confidence in God. He models what it looks like to trust  in any circumstance.

And the disciples are in their process, coming to really know Jesus, discovering that they can trust him a little more, and, subsequently, God.

#2 Jesus cannot sleep at all. (Mark 14:32-42 and Luke 22)

It turns out that knowing your purpose and trusting God doesn't guarantee that you'll live in a state of blissful peace and rest all the time.

Late on a Thursday night, we find Jesus in a garden, pleading with God to release him from his calling, pleading for permission to let go, to rest, to not go through with it.

The internal stress is so intense that capillaries burst and drops of blood slip through Jesus' sweat glands, dripping onto the earth where they are soaked up as was the blood of Abel.

I picture Jesus digging his nails into the earth, face down, the dew dripping from the olive trees overhead as if weeping for their Creator.

Maybe he felt the urge to beat his chest. Maybe he wanted to sink into ground and bury himself away from the torture ahead—to stop the increasing sense of separation from his Father, from comfort, from security and every hopeful feeling.

The preceding events have, no doubt, imposed their own weight: religious leaders plotting his death, the tragic loss of Judas to the dark side, Peter missing the warning, the disciples bickering amongst themselves about who is greatest... Jesus telling them people will know God sent him by the testimony of their love for each other (John 17).

Sometimes, there is a big struggle before we can rest. 

Sometimes we have to hang on and go through to the other side.

Rest is not escape.

Jesus and various biblical writers have spelled it out: there will be suffering. 

But, because Jesus went through with it, Love breaks into this temporal suffering and places us on a rendezvous with eternity where all will be restored. The old order of things will be over.

And those disciples? They changed. They still weren't perfect, but they were fearless.

I hope you are in a place where you can pause and rest.

And if you’re going through a period of restlessness, may you hang on and know that it will not be this way forever.

Alicia