To Rest in the Lord, is to:
- sit down all alone, in a quiet and secret (secluded) place, where we can communicate with Him.
- cultivate a relationship with Him. It’s laying down our burdens and surrendering everything to Him. It’s listening to what He has to say to us.
- come into His peace with an open heart, ready to receive the peace and love and joy He brings.
- be still — and accept — that He is God and He holds all things and will work all things according to His will — which is good, holy, and perfect.
- renew our minds through His word and be transformed continuously, as we walk closer with Him: making ourselves presentable and pleasing through the blood of Christ.
- bask in His abundant grace and marvel at His glory.
- refresh our spirits so we may live according to His will and be able to do all things for His glory.
* * *
Imagine you’re climbing a mountain you’ve never climbed before. You start off excited as can be; but that excitement takes a sharp turn as you find yourself lost. You’re overtaken by anxiety and fear, and your mind won’t stop telling you you’re going to die up here all alone. You panic. And as the flight or fight mechanism kicks in, you flee the scene. You run and run and run – you have no idea where you’re going – but you still continue to run.
There’s a little voice inside telling you to stop and rest. But you don’t listen. You run until you can’t breathe and your legs give out; your vision goes hazy and you trip over your own feet. Falling flat on your face, you are now forced to rest, and thinking about how you should have listened to that little voice sooner… Because now you’re exhausted, feeling hopeless, and just wanting to cry.
And so you cry. You let those tears flow freely down your face, onto the ground around you. If only you could cry a river that led you right off this mountain…
But finally, the calm comes — that serene type of calm that always comes after a breakdown. And in that calm, you hear the Lord say,
“Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.”
Jeremiah 6:16 KJV
* * *
Everyone creates mountains for themselves that they get stuck on and can’t find their way down. Or perhaps it’s a mountain that life has thrown their way.
Either way, these mountains are the reasons why we must learn the power of resting in the Lord prior to climbing these mountains… So that, if we become lost, we have the power of the Lord guiding us through; so that, when anxiety, fear, and hopelessness begin to creep it’s way up, we have the power of God to get us through.
“Rest is a weapon given to us by God. The enemy hates it because he wants us to be stressed and occupied.”
Elisabeth Elliot
When we rest before we get stressed and occupied, Satan can never reach us (at least in this way).
When God tells us to rest, He is providing us with the path to peace.
He calls us to rest in Him; lay our burdens at His feet; tell Him of every care and worry. Ultimately, He’s asking us to trust in Him. He’s asking us to lay our lives down to His will.
When the Lord calls us to rest in Him, He is calling us to not live by our own ideas or strength, but rather through the power and strength that He provides us. For He knows that only His power is strong enough to get us through all of the mountains we’ll be climbing.
Thus, we must learn to rest in the Lord at the beginning of every day, every major event, and honestly just any time we have time. I mean, who wouldn’t want to spend time with the Lord? Especially when we know all He has to offer is goodness and kindness and love and compassion and peace.
May God bless your hearts with not only His rest He offers in this lifetime, but also His eternal rest in the next.
“When He makes me lie down in green pastures;
When He leads me beside quiet waters;
When He is prompting me to allow Him to refresh my soul…
I know I must rest in the Lord.”
A. C. McGuire, Rest In The Lord
If you enjoyed the information here, you can read more in my book that this is extracted from:
