January 2007

Genesis 2:1-3 (New King James Version)
1. Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.  2. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done.  3. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Rest

Did you ever have a relationship where you felt like you were always "walking on eggshells"? That if you were to ever make a mistake or blunder, all "hell" would break loose? Where you were always finding yourself having to watch what you say for fear that it might be misconstrued and offend?  To make matters worse, you knew you were never even appreciated or respected from the start, so what did you expect?  These relationships (if we could really call them that) lack the security that only mutual love and commitment offers. Any form of rest in this relationship escapes us. True rest, genuine rest, allows us to relax and just be ourselves, free from fear.

God offers us this rest in our relationship with Him, but I think very few Christians actually experience it.  We spend too much of our time looking over our shoulder to see what we missed, how we fell short, how we let God down, when the hammer will fall. We constantly burden ourselves with the pressure of "trying harder", and then God will be pleased with us. I know in times past that's been true for me.

There's something pretty interesting to see here in Genesis. God rested on the seventh day. He was finished with creation at that point. Similarly, when we finish a task, we rest. Maybe after you cut the grass, or finish laundry you sit down and survey the wonderful job you've done and enjoy something to drink. The work is done, you can rest now. There's an important principle to see here. God finishes working, and then He rests. It's interesting that God created man at some point on the sixth day. Man was the very last of God's creation. So we could say that man's first FULL day, was the seventh day, or the day of REST. So we see the pattern: God works, THEN He rests, while man must first enter into the REST OF GOD, and then, and only then can he begin to work. If we're ever at the point where we're trying to earn our way into relationship with God, work our way there, or earn His approval or qualify through our efforts, we're missing it. We have to come to Him and fully place our faith in the fact that the work is FINISHED (see John 19:30). Then the things that we "do" will actually make a difference because they will be birthed out of faith and not fear. We can now rest in His graceful acceptance. We'll soon find it's our love for God that is our motivation. God is calling us to it. Allow yourself to enter that rest today.

Blessings!

Dan Owczarzak