When Strivings Cease

Thursday, November 03, 2011 Posted by Sara

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It didn’t take very long to walk to the boat and Rest was kind enough to hold my hand the whole way.  Getting into the boat might have been the hardest part, in fact.  A leg up and some strained upper body strength then I was on the deck of the boat. Rest spryly made his way up the side and joined me.  I looked around curiously.  Where is He?

“What are you looking for?” Rest asked.

“Him,” I said plainly, “this is the epicenter, yes?”

Rest nodded and then pointed to a small table by a pair of deck chairs. Atop the table unassumingly sat my Bible, full of random pieces of paper, notes, and old church bulletins like it always is. Interesting. I approached the table and reached for my Bible.

The moment my fingertips touched the cover – the parable vanished.

At once, I was sitting in the brown chair of our sunroom with a Bible open on my lap.  The sound of water and sails were gone; the river and lemonade just imprints on my mind. And I sat, as I had begun, staring at Hebrews 4.

“Let us therefore strive to enter that rest… (Hebrews 4:11).”

The great oxymoron. There is a striving in entering into rest.  It requires focus and faith – and a renewed mind.  Sometimes life is a raging sea and you have to walk on water to find it. Rest, I was finding, was more than kicking my feet up.  Rest was being with Him.

Rest was when real striving ceased – the striving to please man or perform or make everyone around me happy. Rest was moving with God and knowing He had already made a way for me to be completely accepted and loved and cared for without my need to achieve anything. Ironically, rest could look every bit as active as striving – moving “great ships in the water”, but operated from a completely different motivation of the heart. 

Rest was a welcome companion and a knowledgeable guide.  I had enjoyed our journey together.  But I was most thankful that pursuing Rest had led me right where I needed to be –to the presence of the King. 

sara
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