Sometimes life has a way of keeping you from finding rest. Sometimes that's a spiritual unrest that gnaws away at your inner self with the desires for something more, but other times it's simply physical, an awake-ness that prevents you from the peaceful sleep that's so necessary to life.
Doctors say we should try to get around 8 hours each night, and as a general rule I'm usually somewhere around that. Lately, however, with little people in our home who tend to not always sleep thru the night soundly, I've found this rest interrupted. Tonight is one of those nights. Currently it's about 3am on a Sunday morning, I have church in just a few short hours and we just had a service last night. It's the in-between hours of a long weekend of ministry... a time for recharge, but tonight no such luck. I've been up for a couple hours now, thanks to a 3 year old who's having some bad dreams and a mind of my own that ceases to stop thinking about some stuff and one of the things that keeps racing thru my head as i lay in my bed is how fickle rest really is.
Rest is a spiritual discipline, it's also a spiritual gift, not so much as a gift given to certain spiritual people but rather as a universally recognized gift from God as a time to recharge, reset, and restart. We need to rest to put to an end all of the events of each day. We need to take time at the end of our days to hand things over to God and say "that's enough for today God," to leave things in the hands of the one who really controls it all. Our resting here on earth in the days we're given is really practice for something greater... an eternal rest. I'm reminded of words in Hebrews 4 where the author is talking about entering eternal rest with God. ONE day all our strivings will cease. ONE day those who align themselves with Jesus Christ as Lord will find rest for their souls more beautiful than we can even dare to imagine.
In this season of chaos, with party's, family, friends, gifts and ceremonies may we be people who can find rest in the one who cares for our souls. May a baby born in a manger a world away and centuries past, be a source of comfort and peace beyond what we've ever known before. May God himself allow you to rest.
