Dear Friends,

Only we who believe can enter his rest (Heb 4:3, NLT).

I referenced a family vacation in a lecture to a university class one evening. At the end of class, the oldest student in the class did not leave the room and remained seated at her desk. She was tall blonde woman in her late 30s with a pretty, but drawn face and the tired, but wary eyes of someone who had been disappointed too many times to really hope.

“Are you alright?” I asked her after I had put my books and papers in the brief case.

She slowly turned her haunted gaze toward me. “You talked about a vacation. I was just thinking about how long it has been since I had a vacation?” Her voice was hollow and sad.

“Oh, how long has it been?”

“That’s the problem,” she said. “I can’t remember.”

In the conversation that followed, I learned about her marriage to her high-school sweetheart, birth of two children, her life as a homemaker and a devastating divorce that left her with the two children and no job skills with which to adequately support them. She and her daughter offered unlicensed home day care and she was attending the university in a night adult-learner program hoping to become a social worker or teacher.

Sorrow had drained her spirit and exhaustion had numbed her soul. The thought of rest had long since faded from her consciousness until my off-hand remarks had stirred them to life.

What about rest?

“I don’t have time to rest.” Have you ever said something like that in the urgencies of tasks and schedule?

How about the communal version? “We don’t have time to rest. We have to keep going.”

Ever since humans chose to make their own way in sin instead of depending on the grace of God, ceaseless labor has been the curse we endure just to fuel our brief lives with food (Gen 3:14-19). The finite resources available to creatures without the Creator doom us to constant competition with others for all we can get, in the fear that there won’t be more (Ecc 4:1-8). Yet, there never is enough. As Solomon pointed out, “All human toil is for the mouth, yet the appetite is not satisfied” (Ecc 6:7).

We seek rest, but cannot live on our own without working. Returning to obey and live at peace with our Creator would resolve this problem. “For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength (Isa 30:15).

Instead, we continue to try to have it our way by creating so-called labor-saving devices like computers and email that perversely allow more work to be done, in more places, but in the same amount of time. Thus we now have the oxymoronic travesty of the “working vacation.”

Email, pages and cellphone messages steal into personal and family time. They rob us of rest and diminish the joys of intimacy and solitude. We could be ruthless in turning off electronic devices when at home and on vacation, but concern about the overwhelming pile of emails and contracts that we will face when we return can be intimidating. So we yield to the temptation to read and respond. I even stayed up until 2:30 a.m. on the day of my son’s graduation from college to deal with a client’s crisis by email.

Given its elemental contribution to wholeness of body, soul and mind, rest is emphasized by most of the world’s faiths in teachings on techniques of stillness in prayer, meditation and physical discipline as a means of acquiring spiritual knowledge.

Carl Gustav Jung, whose writings on analytical psychology are at the foundation of New Age Spirituality, hung a plaque in his home that said, “Be still, and know.” His saying borrowed from Psalm 46:10, but left off its most important part —
.
        Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth.

Jung thought of rest as a spiritual method, but Scripture teaches rest as a gift from God. Solomon wrote —
.

It is in vain that you rise up early

   and go late to rest,

eating the bread of anxious toil,

   for he gives sleep to his beloved.

                 (Ps 127:2)

Jesus’ invitation is “Come to me . . . and I will give you rest,” not “Come unto me and work harder” or “Come to me and increase your productivity” or even “Sit still and pray more fervently” (Matt 11:28).

Our salvation is dependent on our response to his invitation. “Learn from me,” he adds (Matt 11:29). Because with Jesus, salvation and rest are synonymous and our receipt and enjoyment of them depend on who we know.

Jesus defined eternal life as “knowing the Father and Jesus Christ whom he sent” (Jn 17:3). He said religious activity, no matter how fervent or well-intended, is no substitute for that deep, intimate knowledge (Matt 7:21-23).

Acquiring knowledge like that requires stillness. Parents and teachers know the value of a quiet learning environment to learn and absorb content. “Hold still and listen to me” is a common instruction of a loving Mom or Dad to an anxious or erring child. It is in the child’s trust that the arms that hold her and the words that encourage and instruct her are loving that she can relax and rest. Parents learn this from the care of a loving heavenly Father and pass it on.

But as our text says, “Only we who believe shall enter his rest.” Those who do not accept and trust God will not know the eternal peace of his salvation. “‘There is no peace,’ says the Lord, ‘for the wicked'” (Isa 48:22).

Jesus Christ is “Lord of the Sabbath” (Matt 12:8). The prophet Isaiah said that under the sovereign authority of Christ there will be unlimited peace (Isa 9:7). Those who turn to him in belief and trusting obedience may rest in confident assurance that their lives and people and matters of concern to them are safe in his hands for eternity (Heb 3:7-4:11). He shelters the citizens of his kingdom with grace and guards them with peace (Phil 4:7).

Seeking rest as a spiritual quest is a fool’s errand without a living, breathing belief in Christ, our Savior, who “is our peace” personified (Eph 2:14-18). The realities of this world are that no peace is possible and we can never rest secure without someone to keep the peace for us. We have certainly failed at that as individuals and as nations.

“What is impossible for humans, is always possible for God” (Matt 19:26). It is the promise of our Lord that he will keep in complete peace those who keep looking to him for their eternal salvation and provision because they trust in him (Isa 26:3).

My crushed and weary student was without hope because she had struggled for so long on her own to obtain security and rest. I told her about Jesus Christ who loved her and wanted to give her rest. I prayed with her that she and her daughter would know him and receive his rest personally. At the end of that prayer was the first time I saw her smile. I referred her to a godly university counselor to help her on her way.

As God, in his sovereign will, has taken over my life and pacified it, I have come to know the peace and rest that I am describing here. I would never have thought it possible and it wouldn’t be except for my trust in his love for me. I rest in the truth of David’s prayer in Psalm 4:8–
.

I will both lie down and sleep in peace;

   for you alone, O Lord, make me lie down in safety.

My prayer is that you too believe or come to believe in Christ and know his peace as your reality.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

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Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Kent Hansen is a Christian attorney, author and speaker. He practices corporate law and is the managing attorney of the firm of Clayson, Mann, Yaeger & Hansen in Corona, California. Kent also serves as the general counsel of Loma Linda University and Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.

Finding God’s grace revealed in the ordinary experiences of life, spiritual renewal in Christ and prayer are Kent’s passions. He has written two books, Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Placespublished by Review & Herald in 2002 and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God’s Love Through Prayer, published by Pacific Press in spring 2007. Many of his stories and essays about God’s encompassing love have been published in magazines and journals. Kent is often found on the hiking trails of the southern California mountains, following major league baseball, playing the piano or writing his weekly email devotional, “A Word of Grace for Your Monday” that is read by men and women from Alaska to Zimbabwe.

 

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