A good friend of mine is an officer on a merchant ship. One night they were sailing across the North Atlantic and the dreaded alarm rang: “Man Overboard”. My friend was the officer in charge of the rescue so he and a few other crew launched a lifeboat into the pitch-black darkness of a cold Atlantic night. Hope was almost lost but suddenly they caught sight of the man in the waves. He was so exhausted that he was moments away from drowning; his legs could kick no more.
My friend reached out his arms to the man and in turn, the man reached out his arms to my friend. In a moment, he was pulled from the waves into the refuge of the lifeboat. People tend to drown because they run out of energy and can’t keep themselves afloat. There are times in life when we can feel like that. We can be so exhausted–whether physically, mentally, or spiritually–that we’re struggling to stay afloat. In times like those, we can’t magic up restorative rest from within ourselves; we need help from outside ourselves and our circumstances. That’s what Christ offers us, and that’s what King David experienced for himself.
In Psalm 62, David is surrounded by people out to get him, slandering him at every turn. He must have been at his wit’s end. Even though we may not have experienced what David went through, we’ve likely felt the same feelings.
In those situations, it’s very hard to just decide to be relaxed and calm. When we’re worn down, we can’t magic up rest from within ourselves. God can use good things like a holiday, a quiet cuppa or exercise to help us unwind, but ultimately we won’t find rest until we grasp that true rest comes from far outside of ourselves and our circumstances.
That’s what David does in Psalm 62. In the midst of trouble, David finds a rest that comes far from this world. As we saw earlier, rest is God’s thing first, so true rest can only come from Him (Psalm 62:5). Moses experienced the same thing when God called him to go to the promised land, comforting him by saying “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14). It is in God’s presence, by being with Him, that we find rest.
Yet sometimes, even though we know we need rest, we can actually be nervous to take God up on His offer. Stopping to rest can be a little scary and even anxiety-inducing. We’re scared to rest because it means stopping our attempts to make things happen, to keep our world spinning, and to fix the very problems that seem to be making us need rest. If we’re to know lasting rest, the kind of rest that calms our souls, the kind of rest that brings peace in the midst of the roaring waves, we need to stop and look to God for help. Looking beyond ourselves means relinquishing our attempts to find rest by ourselves and instead find rest in God. Like the man rescued from the waves, it will involve reaching out our arms to the One who is already reaching out His arms to us.
Relinquishing
The gift of rest is something that will build us up and restore us, yet to receive it, we need to lean not on ourselves but on Christ. In fact, in Leviticus we even read that enjoying sabbath rest actually involves “denying ourselves” (Leviticus 16:29). The gift of rest will prove elusive until we relinquish control, look beyond ourselves and embrace Christ instead. Yet this can be hard to do.
Life today is full of opportunities to make things happen. We can start global businesses with a laptop and a dining table. We can perform groundbreaking surgery (at least some of us can). We can order products for delivery the next day (mostly). In a world like this, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we are the ones who make the world go round. And this leads us to believe that if we stop for rest, our worlds will crumble and cease to be.
However, the Bible reminds us that God is in control. He is the one who builds the house (Psalm 127:1). He sustains all things by the word of His mouth (Hebrews 1:3). “All things are held together by Him” (Colossians 1:17). This means we can trust God to keep our world spinning when we stop and rest.
Trusting
David knew this well and it’s part of what made rest possible for him despite the overwhelming circumstances he was in. He knew that God is both mighty and loving: he says of God that “power belongs to you” and that God is a God of “unfailing love” (Psalm 62:11-12). Those two things are integral to finding restorative rest, to finding a refuge when the storms of life circle and pummel us. Because if God was only one or the other, true rest would escape us. If God were just powerful but not loving, then what reason would God have to share rest with us? And if God were just loving but not powerful, then He’d be incapable of providing meaningful, lasting rest. Yet wonderfully, God is both at once. So we can trust, knowing that His rest is both good and secure. He truly is a fortress that provides peaceful rest (Psalm 62:2). We really can “trust in him at all times” (Psalm 62:8).
Lean on Me
All this means that we really can go to Him for rest. He’s inviting us to look beyond our circumstances, look beyond our empty batteries, and lean on Him. We can stop our striving, our hectic coming and going so that we can cast ourselves on God and enjoy the rest He offers.
Rest will elude us until we look past ourselves, relinquish our grasp on making things happen by ourselves, and instead look to Christ. He is the only true source of rest. Stopping to rest takes some trust, but it’s so worth it. As we reach out our hands to Christ for a safe place to rest, we can know with assurance that He’s got us and He’s already reaching out His hands to us.
Respond: Perhaps spend a few moments reading Psalm 62 and reflecting on the ways that God is inviting you to rest in the midst of your circumstances.
Next article – What Happens When We Rest: Pausing and Praying
Stephen Unwin is a writer and editor with Our Daily Bread Ministries. He has degrees in sound engineering and theology and is currently studying for a PhD on the theology of gift and gratitude. He’s married to Katy and they live in Melbourne, Australia.
