Rest

It was a typical restless night for me, something perhaps many of you have experienced before. Having attempted to sleep for hours, I was interrupted every few minutes by the thought of one more thing I had forgotten to do that day or one last thing I needed to write down for fear of forgetting it later. Up and down, up and down, in and out of bed I rose and fell. My heartbeat and breathing hadn’t calmed since I’d first laid down, and my mind was an endless maze of thoughts and fears. I felt trapped and was giving into the lie that I had to solve all that was within my power before I was allowed to rest….

And then I stopped. For a moment, the verses taped up on my wall next to my bed claimed my attention, and I knew the way out.

I began to recite my special memory verse, reserved just for fighting battles such as these, until I sensed myself physically and even mentally slowing down. Matthew 10:26-33, “So do not be afraid...for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

If any of you reading this struggle with racing thoughts or fear falling out of control, I encourage you to memorize this one. It assures me that all is known by our Heavenly Father, and nothing is out of his sight and all is within his power.

Another verse on my wall that grasped my attention was Psalm 46:10—

“He says, ‘Be still [cease striving], and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.’”
In the wee hours of that morning, amidst my swirling thoughts that began to settle like tossed confetti in the slowly enveloping silence, I was delivered by this realization—

“ I will never reach the standard of perfection for which I strive to attain, for it is by this same standard that Satan seeks to destroy me!”
You see, it was my unsettled heart and mind that prevented me from resting. Our rest will never lie in achieving some standard of perfection or temporary feeling of peace. True rest is found in the Lord and true peace can only come from knowing our unconditional and eternal identity according to Him and not according to any standards of our own, which so quickly shift and change.

In this ever moving, uncertain world, we have a God who calls us to His rest.

As Moses said to the Egyptians in Exodus 14:14, “The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”