Resting with Purpose

It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.

- Psalm 127:2

I am busier than ever these days. I long for rest. But I don't just want a vacation. I don't want to get away from it all. I want to tend to all the things competing for my attention at this moment. I want to devour the "bread of anxious toil" so I can say that I am in control.

The pursuit of control is such vanity. No matter how early I rise nor how late I rest the works of my hands will not last. Yet God says to me that he gives sweet sleep that the bread of anxious toil can never offer. This sleep comes from the knowledge that I am his beloved. I rest in God's arms safe and secure like my newborn daughter rests in her mother's embrace. I rest knowing that my rest will not be in vain for God is at work in me. He has fulfilled all that I need and desire in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. He assures me that all that I am to do flows from this rest in my Savior. I rest to work, not work to rest.

Thank God for this Gospel rest for my tired and weary soul; this Sabbath rest from my works (as an imitation of God's own rest from his own work of creation) redeemed for me on the cross where Jesus declared "it is finished!"