It was a beautiful evening and I left Auckland amongst the heavy Friday traffic and made a bee line for Tauranga. Well actually it wasn’t so much a bee line as a zigzag. Nevertheless I head south and choose my route carefully, using my local knowledge to the best of my advantage to reduce precious minutes from my driving time.
Everything was going well, traffic was busy but flowing and I soon found myself heading down the Kaimai’s into my home town and the picturesque Bay of Plenty. Suddenly the display on my dash popped up a message I had not seen before. It was a picture of a tree with a picnic table underneath it. Below the picture the words “Rest Reminder” appeared. A rest reminder built into a car. Handy.
I was thinking, sometimes it would be great if we could get those reminders in life. You know when you are moving at 100 mph, when even a good nights sleep doesn’t bring rest. Wouldn’t it be handy if a display popped up and said hey you need to rest.
Really REST.
Resting is more than having a sleep in or taking it easy for a day or not going to work.
You can do all these things and still have a million things or worries or uncertainties in your mind. You can take a rest physically and yet not rest mentally or spiritually.
What if really resting means something more than just having a break.
So if we have burdens and baggage, if we have been toiling and labouring hard, if we have a million thoughts and worries running around in our heads, if we have been trying hard on our own to be nice rather than naughty.
Jesus has something really profound to say to us who are like this.
He said “Come to me”, and
“I will give you rest”.
I know he means real rest. Rest mentally, spiritually even though you may not be physically resting. Rest for our souls.
After the reminder popped up on my dash, I pressed cancel and kept driving. Ironically for me physical rest leads to mental rest, leads to spiritual rest. Quite often I press cancel part way through this journey and just keep going.
So rest this Christmas. Rest physically. Rest mentally. Rest spiritually.
Rest!
I’m drawn toward water with the same force that gravity draws me to the ground. The ocean’s pull is strongest of course, but lakes, rivers or small bubbling brooks cause me to pause, breathe and relax.