On May 24 I had a meeting on my calendar that I really didn’t want to take time for. It was a meeting with my leadership coach. I actually value his coaching a lot. But on My 24 I remember thinking that the best way he could help me in my leadership was just to let me have that hour to get more work done. The video call began. After visiting for a few minutes he asked, as he always does, “Ryan, how can I best help you in the time we have together today?” I told him that I didn’t have anything specific in mind. I just wanted to end the call early but that would be lame. He gives his time to help me and I should give the time to let him help me. So, I started talking about the thing that had been on my mind for months, Summer!
I need to back up a bit describe how much I was looking forward to this Summer. The COVID pandemic brought difficulties for all of us, for me, it made me busy. Church leadership has been weighed down with COVID related concerns. It has made for a lot of extra work. Additionally, my family has gone through some tough stuff and my wife has taken on extra work and is doing school. It has left us too busy. I told my coach that I knew I was exhausted and that several of those busy things would be over when the school year finished. For months I was trying to maintain a sprint to Summer. I was still in that sprint. That is why I didn’t want to pause for my meeting with him. I told him about my plan to make this a Summer of restoration. I told him all the things I was trying to get done so I wouldn’t have to do them during Summer. Summer was reserved for hiking, camping trips, enjoying family, and resting. My coach was so affirming, he thought those plans sounded excellent. He told me that this was exactly what I needed. He asked what things still needed to be done even though I planned to take it easy for the summer. I told him about the sermons I needed to write, my plans for 10 weeks of summer, VBS, children’s church, camp meeting, my podcast goals… He listened. Then he said something like, “Ryan, you have a great goal to rest this summer, I just love it. And those are some wonderful things you are talking about doing.” Then he told me, “It sounds to me, if you do all that and to do it as well as you want to, you aren’t going to get any rest this summer.” Rest was my plan but my coach told me the plan wasn’t going to work. It was too full. Do you need a conversation with a leadership coach? Do you need someone to someone to point out what is preventing you from following through on your good intentions? We continued to talk. He had me go back over everything I planned to do and he challenged every point. He pressed, “Could you take that off the schedule?”, “Can it wait?”, “Could you lower your standards or expectations?” It was painful. I knew I could do it all. But he knew if I did, I wouldn’t rest. I didn’t want to take the time for that call. But if I would listen to his advice, it would save me a lot of time.
Summer has come. But the rest hasn’t been automatic. I got a huge amount of work done that last week of school. I picked up my parents from the airport that Friday morning. A few hours latter the school year was complete. The sprint was over. It felt so good! There is so much restoration in being around people you love and doing things you love! But I didn’t do a great job of getting rest. We cheated sleep trying to maximize time with family. We had a wonderful, exhausting time. I dropped off my parents at the airport on 4 hours of sleep. I went from the airport to a trailhead. Hiking is part of my rest and restoration plan. I pushed my tired body 37,000 steps that day. I sat by a river, realizing I was exhausted.
We had more family coming in 5 days. That week was VBS. It was wonderful. I tried to get a bunch of additional work done to free up more time for family when they arrived. I cleaned the house so it was ready to host.
I picked up family from the airport at 1:30am. It was another awesome time with family. We went camping with all seven young kids. We discovered our sleeping mats leaked. We were not asleep the full time we were laying down. I did make a bed out of life jackets that was much improved over the first night. We returned from the camping trip tired and sick. The sickness turned out to be COVID. I had three weeks of not preaching. It was the longest stretch of down time for me all year. I came to the end of it sick and tired.
Here is what I am learning and I hope you can too… rest doesn’t come easy! A day off does not equal deep rest. There is a Psalm that says “Be at rest once more oh my soul”. Don’t you wish you could just tell your soul to rest and it would obey? Rest is elusive in our culture of unrest and restlessness.
It is actually a bit of a helpless feeling. You can have all the ingredients, friends, family, recreation, relaxation, great food, lots of sleep, and still not find rest. Worse than not having time to rest is having time to rest and not being able to get it.
There is an article published in the New York times called Bringing Back the Sabbath. It is written by Judith Shulevitz, who was raised Jewish and stopped practicing. Then as a young adult found that Sabbath rest was what her life was missing. Here is how she expressed the point I am trying to make.
“Most people mistakenly believe that all you have to do to stop working is not work. The inventors of the Sabbath understood that it was a much more complicated undertaking. You cannot downshift casually and easily, the way you might slip into bed at the end of a long day. As the Cat in the Hat says, ‘’It is fun to have fun but you have to know how.’’ This is why the Puritan and Jewish Sabbaths were so exactingly intentional, requiring extensive advance preparation – at the very least a scrubbed house, a full larder and a bath. The rules did not exist to torture the faithful. They were meant to communicate the insight that interrupting the ceaseless round of striving requires a surprisingly strenuous act of will.”
Finding rest is “surprisingly strenuous”. It is not passive, automatic, or guaranteed. The title of this message is Active Rest because, like my leadership coach helped me to do, we must take an active, intentional role in finding rest for our souls.
In Matthew 11 Jesus gave some familiar instruction about rest and then said, “and you will find rest for your souls.” Wait, how do we do to find rest for our souls? This sounds like valuable insight. I want to know because it is not as easy to find rest as I used to think. In Jesus’ instructions I see three action words. They are the secrets to finding rest. These are the three actions that lead to those words, “and you will find rest for your souls.” Reflect with me on Matthew 11:28-30 to see how it can help us find rest.
#1 Come to Jesus.
Matthew 11:28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Jesus didn’t say, “take a break” or “reward yourself”, he said, “come to me”. The reason we come is that he gives rest. It doesn’t come from beauty sleep, time off, salt baths, deep stretching, or sunbathing on the beach. All these things can be restful but you can also do those things and not find rest. Psalm 127:2 says that it is in vain that people rise early and go to bed late because it is God who gives sleep. These things are only restful if God gives you rest through them.
We live in a society where energy comes from a drink, relaxing comes from a different kind of drink, and sleep comes from a pill. That is so unnatural. What is natural is for us to get our energy and our rest for Jesus. It is the way we are designed.
Our souls are in need of spiritual deep rest. It is like we have missed the REM cycle of the soul and we are left perpetually rest deprived. Weariness is not primarily a physical problem, it’s spiritual.
We find rest by coming to Jesus.
#2 Take Jesus’ Yoke
Matthew 11:29-30 “Take my yoke upon you, 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.”
The yoke is a harness that is put on an animal to pull a heavy load. If two animals are pulling together the yoke keeps them together for increased pulling power.
The people Jesus is talking to already have a yoke. They are already carrying a heavy load. He is talking to “all who labor and are heavy laden”. “Labor” is something that we can objectively measure in a 24-hour shift or 70 hours in a week. Jesus is talking to the overworked. He is also talking to those who are “heaven laden”. That’s a little different. That is not something that can be objectively measured in hours but it is a load we carry all the time. We can’t rest while carrying a heavy load. Are you labored and heave laden? If you are, you might expect Jesus to say, stop working, lay down your load. Surprisingly, he says, take my yoke. He is talking to people carrying too much and telling them to take on more. Why?
The action that leads to rest is not primarily letting go of our stuffy but taking hold of Jesus’ stuff. Sure, you might need to lay down your load, but if you take on Jesus’ yoke you will naturally take off yours. We should not focus on offloading all those things we shouldn’t carry as much as we should focus on carrying the right stuff. Reserve your shoulders for the load Jesus wants you to carry. There won’t be any room left for the other stuff that weighs you down. Our yoke makes us weary. His yoke actually gives rest. To find rest ask Jesus what he has for you to take on and let the other things fall aside. It is not about trying to carry nothing but learning to carry the right thing.
Don’t miss this detail, when we take Jesus’ yoke, he pulls with us. His yoke is easy, not because it is insignificant, but because he is yoked to us and pulling for us.
#3 Learn from Jesus
Matthew 11:29-30 “Take my yoke upon you, 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.”
We have some things to learn about rest! Notice the attributes of Jesus that he specifically wants us to learn from, his gentleness and lowliness of heart.
How does seeing his gentleness help us learn rest? See him not condemn the woman at the well. See him take kids on his knee. See him offer his back to those who beat him. Hear him say, “Father forgive them they know not what they do.” Are you anxious, high strung, overworked, or too busy? In the school of Christ’s gentleness we find an non-anxious presence, a non-defensive posture, a non-condemning tone and a quite spirit. If we learn this gentleness we will find rest.
How does seeing his lowliness of heart or humility help us learn about rest? Pride and self-exaltation are a restless disease. So much of our unrest comes from the constant need to prove ourselves. We can learn from Jesus. Our pride and harshness are keeping us from rest.
We have so much to learn from Jesus about rest. He slept in the storm. He retreated to be alone with his Father. He enjoyed relaxing with his friends. He gave us a gift of rest when we were created. At the completion of his creation work week, he rested. He established a weekly rhythm of work and rest. He invited us into a blessed day of rest. Before sin came to the human race, before there were sore muscles or sleepless nights there was a design that we would rest with God in a special way once a week. We can learn about rest from Jesus.
We talk a lot about Sabbath in our church. This seventh-day sabbath is in our name. Sometimes we have cared more about getting the right day than getting the Sabbath rest. Maybe you have noticed that there is a lot of talk about Sabbath these days from non-Adventist and even non-Christian. Sabbath is a term that is trending in our mainstream vocabulary. People who study science, health, and self-care are amazed by the need for the weekly rhythm and a sabbath rest. Seventh-day Adventist have something to teach the world about rest. We also have a lot to learn about it. As I listen to some of these people talk about sabbath I realize that they are getting it. Even if they are not observing the biblical day they are being more intentional than I am about entering into the rest. It makes me aware that we have a lot to learn about rest. That is why Jesus says, “learn from me.” Learn from the Lord of the Sabbath what it means to rest in him. One way you can find the restoration of rest is seek a renewal of your Sabbath experience. As Adventist we are blessed to already have a Sabbath rhythm, now let God enhance the rhythm you have to help you enter into that deep soul rest you need.
So, what do you think? Will you let Jesus give you rest? Come to Jesus. He gives rest. Take his yoke. Let the things you are pulling for be the things that he would have on your shoulders. Learn from him. Let him be your rest coach.
Dedicate this week to actively pursuing rest. Look up the questions for the trail and use them to have a conversation about rest. Enjoy the moments of rest that God gives. Don’t let the busyness run away with your week. When we are weary we are not living the abundant life God has for us. Let God give you rest.