#764. Resisting Rest.
I once had a job where a manager fell asleep during a training course. We paid tens of thousands of dollars to bring in some experts to train us and in the back row of the conference room he was sprawled out in his chair sleeping.
Years ago, that wouldn’t have been a big deal. I’m not saying I would have covered him up in a blanket and nestled a Webkinz stuffed animal into the crook of his arm, but the story of his sleeping would have faded fairly quickly. Unfortunately for him, people now have cameras on their cell phones. In a matter of minutes, a photo of him snoozing was bouncing around. He wasn’t fired, but he was forced to wear a sucrose IV at all times that kept him awake.
Maybe I made up that last part, but for some reason I thought about that guy recently. You see, things feel slippery right now. I can’t really define it better than that, but things feel like they’re falling through my hands without me being able to control them.
Part of that might be the book. It’s out now and there are so many balls I feel like I am dropping.
I need to be leaning hard into social networking and hustling and selling the book. I saw that my good friend Pete Wilson has a way for people to put the cover of his book Plan B in the corner of their Twitter profile photo. I need to do that. Or I need to speak more or do more signings, but I have a full time job that really limits that. I asked my job for some unpaid time off and HR said no. I need to be in motion. I need to be out building the brand. And crushing it like Gary V. But unfortunately, God doesn’t really work that way. He’s so backwards of everything else in life that when things get crazy, the action He requires is different than you’d think.
Here is part of my favorite verse about God’s expectations, Isaiah 30:15:
“In repentance and rest is your salvation”
There are two parts to that sentence and it is a sentence I have explored a thousand times on this blog, but if I’m being real, I usually rewrite it. I usually scribble it down in my head as:
“In repentance is your salvation.”
“In repentance and hard work is your salvation.”
“In repentance and pittance is your salvation.”
“In repentance and punishment is your salvation.”
You might not write it the same way, but I feel like we as Christians have lost that word “rest” from our collective vocabulary. And I think there are a few reasons why:
1. We feel like we can control repentance.
Even though we really can’t, it feels like we can control repentance on some level. I can count the number of times I ask for forgiveness or humble myself a certain way or read the right verses. There are some universally accepted actions associated with repentance, but rest is hard to control. You can’t really measure rest or force it, or count it and establish a metric around it. You can’t control rest and that frustrates us.
2. You can’t yell “rest.”
Rest is hard to put on a sign and protest with. Sure, we can say “Repent for the kingdom of God is near!!” all day long, but how are you going to put “rest” on a sign? Can you imagine that sign? “Rest for the kingdom of God is near!” or “Take a nap for the Lord.” Very ineffective.
3. Repentance separates us.
I can feel better about myself if I focus on repentance. I can do it better than you and feel self righteous. I can establish a bit of a caste system. I can’t do the same with rest. Rest doesn’t easily allow an “us vs. them” scenario.
4. Nobody in life celebrates rest like God.
There’s an energy drink called “Cocaine.” There is also caffeinated water. There are a billion energy supplements. We are a fast society, struggling to get faster. We are in a rush to get nowhere and speed is our drug of choice. God doesn’t get down that way though. He goes slow. He celebrates rest and renewal and slow growth. I once heard a pastor say that we are called to do something the world sees as wasteful, “pray.” Stopping and pausing and being still feels weird to us in a world given over to quickness.
As I look at that list and I think about my life, I am overwhelmed and confused and scared and excited by the idea of one thing:
Surrender
What a terrifyingly beautiful word that is. Surrender. Rest. Stop. The rest of Isaiah 30 says that when we are lost, we ride off on swift horses to get away from the things that hurt us but they always catch us in the end. Achievement, money, relationships, stuff, accomplishment, we all have barns full of horses.
I’m tired of riding though.
I’m tired of running though.
I’m tired of trying to wrestle the slippery hours of the day into some sort of system.
I’m tired.
I surrender.
I give in to rest. I refuse to read only half of the sentence “in repentance and rest is your salvation.” I will repent, but I will also rest. I will give up, on getting up and will instead rest.
How about you?
Do you need to rest?
