Let’s face it:
sometimes going “all the way” with Jesus is a challenge, and we find ourselves
lagging behind where we feel like we should be. In times like these, it might
make sense to tell ourselves to work a little harder, to devote ourselves more
fully to God. But the gospel diagnoses things differently. Ironically, the
gospel tells us that when following Jesus gets difficult, the answer is not to
“work harder” but to “rest better.” Only by learning to rest in Jesus will
we have the strength we need to thrive.
I cannot
imagine a more relevant concept for our culture. We have a culture that
chronically overworks. We know it’s bad for us, but we feel compelled to keep
up the frenetic pace. After all, work is how we put food on the table. More
than that, however, work provides many of us with a source of identity. And
since work is our source of identity, we are constantly striving to
prove ourselves. We determine our worth by our work—but the striving never
ends.
The good news
is that the gospel offers a rest from all of this. One proof that we have found
the gospel, according to Hebrews 4, is that our lives are characterized by a
profound rest. Only Christ can provide that inner rest. Without Christ, we will
work even while we are resting; with Christ, we will rest even while we are
working.
We spend our
lives trying to justify ourselves, to diminish our faults and to exaggerate our
virtues. We feel guilty. We feel unimportant. We feel naked and exposed, so we
cover ourselves with titles, personas, and accomplishments. We can never rest
if we find our identity in our work. Too many of us do, which is why we are
always fighting to prove our value. One of the hardest lessons to learn is that
we cannot control everything, that we cannot provide for every contingency—in
short, that we are not God. We are tremendously stressed because we carry
around a burden of security that God never intended for us to carry.
It surprises me
how rarely we stop to ask ourselves, “Where exactly am I heading?” Too often
our lives lack a priority, a unifying purpose for our decisions. So we labour
over every fork in the road, not sure how to weigh each choice, and never
confident that we have made the right one.
If Christ is
our priority, however, that gives us a compass for decisions. Not only that,
but it provides rest. If we honour Him above everything, He promises to take
care of the rest (cf. Matt 6:33). We no longer need to worry and obsess about
money, about relationships, about work. We focus only on faithfulness. When Christ
is the priority, when He is first, we get everything else we actually need. Put
other things first, and not only will we lose Him; we will eventually lose
them, too.
Christ offers
us inner rest: He will be our righteousness, identity, security, and priority,
if we simply believe in His gospel.
