Radical Rest

I came across a book description recently that termed the read a "radical call to rest." It isn't that the views or ideas in this book are that outrageous. It is that the idea of rest is, in and of itself, radical. 

How did we get here? It isn't that our forefathers weren't busy. The pioneers of our American culture, I think, would be highly offended to deem the physical labor and industrious fortitude they carried as hardly akin to anything resembling “rest.”

If anything, we actually have more time to rest than they did. By the miracles of dryers, email, and modern transportation, a great deal of "time" has been shored up as compared to our ancestors who line dried clothes, hand wrote letters, and visited their neighbors on either foot or horseback. 

And yet, we have filled all that time with new, self imposed obligations for productivity. This isn't an individual criticism because unfortunately, even if you chose to fall out of the system that runs this societal machine, you would be swallowed up. The system imposes real obligations, real bills we have to pay, real consequences if we don't. 

But we do each individually retain a responsibility to draw a line somewhere and to advocate for ourselves and others where that line is and what (or who) it is in the name of. 

For the Christian, it is in the name of Jesus, Sovereign Lord over all.

Even our ideas of rest are hardly rest at all. Scrolling through Instagram, watching TV? Even if we take the convenience of technology out of it, even something as slow paced as reading a real book could be considered a passive activity mistaken for real rest. 

These are more like pacifying forms of entertainment. And I am not knocking them for their de-stressing qualities. Scrolling Instagram some days is just the mindless decompression I need to survive another day. But to consider them "real rest" just isn't accurate. 

When Jesus says, "Come to me all who are weary, I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28) He does not mean he will give us more time to scroll TikTok. 

He means he will finally click off the switch in your head that is buzzing about in anxious activity every moment of your life. He means he will touch your heart and beckon it to stillness instead of endless, aimless roam. He means he will soften the muscles in your body that hold the tension of an unknown, frightening future. He means he will silence the critical, negative voices and give you something to focus on that is encouraging, comforting, and true.

I had a coach tell me once he had a player years ago whose parents put immense pressure on their son's performance. Though I'm sure their intentions were for him to do well, the coach could recognize how much it weighed on the player, how it distracted him, how it kept him from accessing his natural skill. The coach told me during games he would often stand between the player and his line of vision of his parents in the stands. He would help the player focus on him - his coach who encouraged him, instead of the pressures he associated with his parents. 

Jesus is the loving coach that stands between us and the demands of the world that pressure us to stay rushed, stay busy, stay distracted. Like a good coach would a player, he puts both hands on our shoulders and commands our fixed eye contact. "Focus on me, I will give you rest." 

Perhaps one of our greatest downfalls is to believe if we cannot do something fully then we shouldn't attempt it at all. It is no different when it comes to rest in our lives.

Keeping Sabbath is a part of the Christian faith. It is, in fact, one of the ten commandments. Further, it is one of only two commandments that gets extensive elaboration, more than a simple, direct, command. (The other being not to make an idol.) 

It is easy for us to succumb to feelings of impossibility when we consider reserving one day for rest. I use "one day" deliberately because some traditions consider Sabbath Saturday, while others consider it Sunday, and - especially for the sake of this very amateur discussion - I think many of us would struggle to reserve one day at all, much less one specific day. 

But...what if we could keep one hour? One minute? A series of minutes periodically throughout our day where we deliberately, intentionally disengage from the sense of constant hurry and instead turn toward Jesus in Sabbath rest? 

Could we take one moment to appreciate the sunrise? One moment to notice the wind blowing the trees? One moment to breathe deeply and fully instead of shallow and automatically? One moment to whisper a prayer of peace over a situation that keeps worrying us? One moment to just tell God he is good for no reason except you know it to be true in your life? One moment to soften our hearts? One moment to set down a situation we are concerned about? One moment to receive a compliment someone gives us? One moment to check in with ourselves? One moment to close our eyes and tune out the sound, the noise, the distraction and listen intently for his voice delighting over us? 

This is rest. 

And if we can string those moments together, eventually we can work up to one full day that is reserved for this kind of reflection. 

Pretty soon we will be stringing together weeks that are bookended with full days of keeping this commandment, which naturally adds up to the abundant life Jesus came here to give us.

Now that would be radical.