Rest

I'm not sure if things are easier than last time, I wrote.  (See post entitled "Hard")  It's not that hard is bad, its just....well, hard.  Hard can be really good and even sweet, but not usually what we crave.  It's interesting to me how often I'll be asked after an especially hard day or week if things are going better.  I rarely know exactly how to answer.  Better?  The implication is that when things are hard, they are bad.  Sometimes that's true, but not necessarily.  I think we, in America, are obsessed with comfort and ease, myself included.  It's intoxicating, alluring, and satisfying...sort of, but not really if we are honest.  I'm not saying comfort is in and of itself wrong.  However, when any good thing becomes the "ultimate thing" then our affection for it is certainly wrong.  How prone we are do make ultimate things out of the good things God gives us!  I do it constantly, confess it and then do it again.  It might be the latest, greatest, hottest item out there or it might just be solitude, a cup of tea or a good book.  It's that place our soul craves.  It is that idea, the image, the place for which we are striving but never finding.  Don't get me wrong, I love solitude, a cup of tea and a good book, but if my days are all about finding those things, I will NEVER be content or satisfied when I find them because I will always be afraid of loosing them.  I love God's gifts, but that's all that they are.  Reflections of Him.  I believe that God is a God of comfort.  I believe that He is a God of infinite pleasures, but they are all found in Him not apart from Him.  Comfort is knowing I do not live under God's condemnation, but in the freedom of sonship.  Comfort is having an advocate and intercessor in the Son.  Comfort is knowing that these "momentary light afflictions" are nothing when compared to the "eternal weight of glory" that God is preparing for us (2 Cor. 4:17).  Comfort is being free from the slavery of trying to keep God happy with me for Christ has already accomplished that on my behalf.  Comfort is entrusting everything in my life that I cannot control to the One who controls all things.  Comfort is resting in Ultimate Wisdom, Goodness, Justice, Love and Power.  Rest...what we all crave will not find apart from Christ.

"Our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in You."  --Augustine (Confessions)

So, yes, I crave rest.  I don't especially like hard, but I realize that ease in this life is rarely the road to true rest.  So, we press on believing, often without seeing, that the rest promised us is ours indeed, even when our journey is long and the terrain is rough.  For any fellow travelers who may be weary on the way, take courage and remember the One who has called you is the One who will keep you.  And that is a truth in which to find rest.