REST: WHY IT IS ELUSIVE AND HOW TO REFOCUS | PART 3

Who are we then in God’s eyes?

As we understand who God[1] is as it relates to Sabbath, the question has to shift to us and our identity. Are we as God’s servants merely about doing God’s work? Does God care about our well-being? What does it mean for us to lay down our life, count the cost, and carry the cross? What kind of God do we believe in? Is God a task-master or a loving Father? What’s our foundational identity as missionaries?

Going back to the creation account, before God Himself rested, there is a story of how God created us in His image and His likeness. This incredible and consistent theme of human beings created in God’s image and His likeness emphasizes a familial relationship with God. God knows us intimately, as many men and women of God testified in the Bible. More specifically, God addresses us as His children more than any other designation in the Bible. This endearing concept of us as His children should form our foundational identity. Our identity as missionaries or laborers of the Great Commission flows out of this foundational identity. Thus our rest is not only setting our perspective right on Jesus but it also involves who we are in relationship to God, primarily as His beloved children. 

Why rest?

We rest for two reasons: God and people (or in our context, the nations). As I have pointed out earlier, rest is to remember who God is and what He has done in our life. It is to refocus that God is God and we are not. Our trust is not in our abilities and competencies, but solely rest on God, which is worship.

Sabbath fulfilled in human life is really celebration of God. Sabbath is inseparable from worship, and, indeed, genuine worship is Sabbath. As the fourth commandment, Sabbath is the fulfillment in practice of the first three. When we come to the place where we can joyously “do no work” it will be because God is so exalted in our minds and bodies that we can trust him with our life in our world and can take our hands off of them. . . Progress in the opposite direction can only be made in solitude and silence, for they “take our hands off of the world” as nothing else does. And that is the meaning of Sabbath.[2]

True rest is our commitment to come to a place where we can joyously “do no work” because God is so exalted and trusted. Can we “do no work” joyously? Keeping the Sabbath is an act of faith. We are saying that God is the one who is in control and we are not. Practicing Sabbath, then, is to focus on our intimacy with Jesus, for He is the Lord of Sabbath. Following Jesus and His footsteps, including solitude and silence, is how we would learn to rest.

Now, we shift our attention to people or the nations. Consider the quote below.

When you are not recharged or fully rested, it is almost impossible to be present with someone else, let alone add value to his or her life. When you are charged up and rested well, then you have the ability to impact those around you, which will simultaneously impact your influence.[3]

In a more spiritual sense, the quote above relates to what Thomas Merton penned, “go into the desert not to escape other men but in order to find them in God”.[4] Merton’s insight is well taken—we rest so we can find others in God. The point above clearly understands the connection between rest and the horizontal commandments regarding our relationships with others.

In a book titled 5 Gears: How to Be Present and Productive When There Is Never Enough Time, Kubicek and Cockram describe highly effective leaders that have learned how to live out of 5 gears. 1st gear is all about learning to recharge and rest. The idea is that effective leaders have learned to progressively move from 1st gear to 5th gear, 5th gear being the focus mode: task-centered and fully focused and moving quickly. Surprisingly, this book is a business and leadership book. Kubicek and Cockram go on to say that “true rest allows you to come fully alive”.[5]  Discovering who we are and how we live as His children matters to the people around us and to the nations. We cannot get there unless we find true rest on a regular basis.  

[1] The Trinitarian God is at work here. God created the template of rest. Jesus declared as the Lord of Sabbath and thus He is the focus and source of our Sabbath. The Holy Spirit actively aids us to focus on Jesus and learn from His ways.

[2] Willard D. (2002) Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. Navpress, p. 175.

[3] Kubicek J. and Cockram S. (2015) 5 Gears: How to be Present and Productive When There is Never Enough Time. Wiley, p. 113.

[4] Merton T. (1961) New Seeds of Contemplation. A New Directions Book. P. 53.

[5] [5] Kubicek J. and Cockram S. (2015) 5 Gears: How to be Present and Productive When There is Never Enough Time. Wiley, p. 123.