I’m in the middle of waiting for a bunch of different things. It drives me crazy. I’m waiting on an agent who is reading my most recent novel. It’s the longest, most risky thing I’ve ever done. I feel committed to the process, but the waiting is such a challenge. Will he want to represent my work, or pass on it? And then what will I do?
I have another novel I’m pulling out of one publisher’s hands and moving to another publisher. This takes time.
I’m living with good friends, but need to make some long-term decisions about the future. I’m also trying to decide where to go to church and am in the middle of making a decision about that.
All these decisions and changes are starting to take their toll on my energy level and I feel exhausted.
In yoga the other day, while moving from one pose to another, I paused in my practice and told God, “I just want things to be easy for once.”
The response came almost immediately, startling so. “There’s a difference between a life of ease, and a life lived out in my rest.”
In the dictionary ease and rest have very similar definitions. They’re almost identical. And yet, they’re different. If one reads the Bible, they’ll come across different passages throughout all the stories of scripture about rest. In the Old Testament God asks his people to take one day off and rest every week. And then in the New Testament, we are told that Jesus himself is our rest. There’s some mystery in all of this.
There’s this passage in Matthew eleven that I have long appreciated. “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Perhaps this is what God meant while I was sweating it out on my yoga mat, bemoaning the frustrations of having to live in a season of transition and waiting. His yoke is easy and his burden is light — He’s on my side. He loves me. He watches when a sparrow falls, he’s certainly going to be with me through it all. He doesn’t demand perfection. He remembers that I’m made of dust. And God takes my small life offered to him and blesses it. God brings meaning and significance to my life, not because it’s spotless or blameless, but because I’ve come to him and asked him to.
The tricky thing is figuring out how to take on the ways of Jesus and learn to live a life of rest. How do we become gentle people who are carefree in the great care of God?
I think trust has something to do with all of this. If you’ve lived any sort of life on this planet you’ll know things never turn out the way you expect them to. We put our lives in God’s hands and then everything seems to implode. We take a risk and lose our money, the house burns down, people get sick or their backs go out and they can’t walk and live in chronic pain, good people you trust turn on you when you need them, or the medical insurance refuses to pay for your medical bills and you’re forced to pay for your illness with retirement money and you have no idea if you’ll ever get to stop working. You thought God led you to buy a house and then you lose your job and can’t pay for it and are forced to foreclose. These things happen all the time. Or you raised your children in the church and did everything Dr. Dobson told you to do, and not a single one of them wants anything to do with the faith you hold so dearly. What the heck, God?
So, we go to church and hear good sermons about the three things we need to do in order for our lives to get better — and we do them, because let’s face it, there are times when we’d do about anything to figure out how to get God’s attention. And things improve for a season. So we praise God. And then things fall apart, again.
What in the world is Jesus talking about?
He’s trying to tell us there’s a difference between a life of ease and a life lived out in his rest. This world is a hard and difficult place and we have far less control than I’m comfortable with. The rug will get pulled out from under us. People will hurt us. Things will fall apart.
And in the middle of it all … there’s this promise … “and lo I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.”
His presence is our rest.
His gentle way of holding up the weak is what will sustain us through our trials.
He lifts up the humble, he heals the broken-hearted, and he binds up the wounded …
He comes when he’s invited. His presence is transformational. He brings a kind of soul rest that makes the unbearable bearable. He helps the weary, and he brings life, for He is Life …
I love your thoughts, Tina!
Thanks, Jo Ann!
xoxo
Man – this has been my life these last few months in the area of career in particular and I am so thankful for your words. Scripture is steeped in this promise and I am mindful that He is near.
I am so glad to hear from you! Are your girls on spring break this week? Maybe we could get together. I’d love to see you.
And I’d love to hear about your career path.
Much Love,
Tina
The difference between ease, which I look for, and rest, which God gives generously, is a great tension. I can miss out on rest while looking for ease. Thanks for the wisdom Tina
I miss out on it, too! And am learning to enter into rest while struggling through the tensions of life!
Miss you, friend.
xoxo
Right on the button, Tina. It’s hard to wait for God’s answers and when they come they can be terribly hard to deal with. Our youngest son’s stroke at the end of August was prophesied to me, but I didn’t “get it” until it happened, when the visions suddenly all made sense and upheld me. Walking through the aftermath for the past almost six months has been incredibly difficult, especially since his brother was so devastated he smoked pot until he had his first psychotic break in eight years. He, too, is recovering, proving all over again that music is effective for schizophrenia. But none of this is what I expected. It entails some of the hardest work I’ve done in my adult life. Yet, amazing miracles come to match the difficulties, starting with the surgeon who saved Alex’s life. Stunning turn-arounds in his partner’s behaviour despite her bipolarity, unexpected gifts, new opportunities to share my expertise with professionals. GOD is active in your agonizing world. In the whirlwind. In the silence.
It’s been so long since I’ve heard from you! Thank you for writing me and letting me know how you are. God be with you. It sounds like it’s been difficult and that you are the same incredible woman seeking God and letting him lead you to knew things. Hope springs eternal …
Much Love to you, Laurna.
xoxo
So true Tina. Thank you for sharing these reminder of His presence in the tension. ..hope to see you soon!
Xoxo
It’s so wonderful to hear from you. I hope to see you soon, too!
xoxo
Ha Tina,
I always think it’s amazing that God is the same to so many different people in such different circumstances… still teaching the same kinds of things to us. Life as a christian is NOT easy, not ‘ease’, but it is the only real kind of Life to me. And to you too, more and more, if I interpret your writings correctly.
And the perfection thing too, God’s perception of ‘perfection’ is sooo different from ours. Perhaps our so-called imperfections are His perfection.
Ad majorem Dei gloriam, as the Jesuits would say.
peace to you, Arjan
Life as a Christian is real Life to me, too. Thank you for staying in touch. God’s perspective of perfection is totally different than ours — I completely agree.
Peace to you,
Tina
ln my 79 years of life, I’ve experienced nearly everything you listed today. In the midst of it all, I learned to trust God. It started as early as when I gave birth to my 3 kids and I realized they were not “mine” but loaned to me to raise the best I knew how using Biblical principals. How did all three turn out. About like your list says. When God told me to move to Texas, I had no idea why. I “think” I have figured it out, only to realize that there is no one specific thing I can say has taken place but a multitude of experiences all running together and continuing on daily. If anything you wrote this time, I believe that God is blessing me with rest. Rest from turmoil and chaos, rest from always working, working, working, or rest which allows me lots of time to reflect on what God is doing in my life and finding so much joy every day, something that seemed to be lacking because of all the above “stuff”! Plenty of time to be so thankful to Him for this rest. Thanks for another great article. We all learn together.
I love hearing from you! Thank you, Carol for staying in touch.
Bless you, dear woman as you trust God and show the way to so many who follow in your footsteps.
xoxo