To Enter God’s Rest

I wrote about this in 2008 but the subject of rest came up recently in a class, or “lab,” on the subject of faith and work (it’s using a subset of a curriculum from Faith & Work Journey).

This obviously provoked me to think again about entering God’s rest, because I’m not very good about the whole “rest” thing. Now I still agree with what I wrote before, but I also think that I didn’t give enough attention to the actual word used there: rest.

What is rest, actually? One thing it’s not is agitation. I am an expert in agitation (no brag, just fact). A recent example is from just last year. The false self (any “false self” will do, it doesn’t have to be the false self) brings agitation, and to enter God’s rest, I guess I have to shed whatever false self I’ve wrapped myself in. And in place of that, as the Apostle Paul writes, “clothe yourselves in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Colossians 3).

Oh, maybe it's a virtuous-cycle kind of thing? As I make some effort to enter God’s rest, and clothe myself with those things, he clothes me with garments of his salvation and wraps me in robes of his righteousness (Isaiah 61 has something about that)? And helps me be my true self, to live with integrity, and more fully enter his rest.

Which all sounds very good to me.