Working Restfully | Dreaming Beneath the Spires
We were created to work out of a place of rest, Sally writes in a beautiful blog post.
Indeed!
These are increasingly red lights for me: Being over-tired, being stressed, over-working, being anxious, obsessing.
Because you see, his yoke is easy, and his burden light.
When I am doing too much, am rushing ahead of him, am doing what I am not called to do, or doing more than I am called to do today, I am—no wonder!!—tired.
I love the image of two oxen in tandem, walking together, the experienced ox setting the pace for the younger one, while the yoke they bear makes the shifting of enormous loads relatively easy.
And that is how I want to go through my day, and sometimes do—with frequent rest breaks, prayer breaks, to make sure I am still plodding beside my lovely ox friend, going where he intends me to go—and at the pace he intends.
I was struck again that humanity was created to work from a place of rest; God rested and took in the wonder of his creation, and he invites us to rest with him. To enjoy being in his company, to revel in our createdness, to be before we ever start to do! I believe that we need to recapture the art of being, not simply the art of relaxing, because quite often relaxing is a form of doing….
We need to be in God’s presence, to be rekindled by the breath that gives us life,to breathe his air, to receive renewal for our souls and minds, spirits and bodies. To remember that we were not created to do anything alone, but rather to be in communion with the one who lovingly fashioned us in his image from the dust and called us his own.
“Now here is my secret:
I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God- that I am sick and I can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me to give, because I no longer seem capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.”
I need God, I need God because I can’t do life alone, and when I try I soon run out of steam and find myself incapable of life. We weren’t made to do things for God, God does not want us to do things for him, we were made to live out a life with God, “to live and move and have our being in God.” (Acts 17:28).
As one who was always striving to do more, and to be more, this was and continues to be a deep revelation and challenge to me, and I pray that it will continue to be so. When I am “in” Christ, with God I am freed from the need to perform, I don’t have to do anything for:
“God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.” (Ephesians 3)
So here I am, sick and unable to be a disciple without him, and that is OK, because that is how it should be
