The Rest of God
When Busyness Seems to Take Over
When Mark Buchanan, author of The Rest of God, was asked about his biggest regret in life, he replied “Being in a hurry…. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all that rushing.” Sometimes I think I’m making up for lost time by rushing around, but looking back I see missed opportunities to be gentle and show love, my own blindness to what’s most important (and is often standing in front of me), and I’ve found my heart to be anxious and restless.
Wayne Muller, in Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest, describes a Chinese linguistic feature where two characters form a single pictograph for the word “busyness.” Those characters are “heart” and “killing.” Where does our busyness exact its steepest toll other than on our own hearts? What would give great relief to our constant pursuits of approval, comfort, and security? What can be found in slowing down, stopping to find what’s missing? There are some facets of God that can only be found in stillness and silence. The Psalmist writes, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
Imagine what it would feel like to experience deep rest. God graciously gives us rest in our daily rhythm of sleep– where we are vulnerable, defenseless, lack control, and are not doing anything. It’s a good picture of our need for faith even in our rest. “I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me” (Psalm 3:5). And in the next Psalm, “I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8). If we can sleep in complete confidence knowing where our help comes from and entrust our business to God, what would actively resting in God look like when we’re awake? Can we trust God’s good hand over our lives in our work so that we are not stuck in a cycle of busyness and regret?
Finding a deep rest in God can only come when we stop and give Him our attention. Often we think God wants our attention in order for us to do something for Him, but what if He just wants us? Paying attention might look like being awake and present in each moment, listening and noticing things in the mundane and normal of our days, looking for God’s hand at work in us and around us. These things are often overlooked and unappreciated when we rush busily by them. Buchanan speaks for all of us when he says, “We simply haven’t taken time. We’ve not been still long enough, often enough, to know ourselves, our friends, our family. Our God. Indeed, the worst hallucination busyness conjures is the conviction that I am God. All depends on me. How will the right thing happen at the right time if I’m not pushing and pulling and watching and worrying?”
So how do we find this deep rest that our hearts deeply long for? You won’t find it in your circumstances (or a change of) or even in your own heart. You must look outside of yourself. David was in distress, pursued by enemies trying to ruin him, and there was only one place he found rest: “My soul finds rest in God alone…He alone is my rock and my salvation…I will never be shaken… Find rest, O my soul, in God alone.” (Psalm 62). Along with a lifelong practice of training our hearts to find rest in God, asking God to help us develop thankfulness will orient our hearts toward Him.
“Thankfulness is a secret passageway into a room you can’t find any other way…. It allows us to discover the rest of God– those dimensions of God’s world, God’s presence, God’s character that are hidden, always, from the thankless. Ingratitude is an eye disease every bit as much as a heart disease. It sees only flaws, scars, scarcity.” (Buchanan)
Finding deep rest in God takes practice, mostly through thankfulness, in being still in the presence of God, of giving Him our attention, of waiting on Him to renew our strength daily. Asking God to convince us, a very forgetful people, over and over again of His goodness and care will give us more grateful lives and more rested hearts. What might the gift of a few quiet moments or a day of rest each week do to your anxious and busy heart?
by Melissa Lien