St Augustine wrote, "[God] you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."
"Our hearts are restless": that's a great description of life today.
So often I feel restless. I'm rushing around making sure the kids get homework done, get to their after-school clubs, are fed and looked after.
I rush around with church activities, chatting issues through with my husband as he seeks to lead the church well, organising rehearsals and leading worship, trying to spot new people and welcome them as well as look after those who've been in the church for years.
I rush around with my work, meeting deadlines and thinking up new ideas for writing projects. Yes there is a bit of space for pondering within that, but too often it is pressurised, rather than restful.
I rush from one evening meeting to another – church meetings, governors' meetings, music practices, even rushing to exercise classes.
I feel restless a lot of the time. I know the better way is to start by positioning myself at Jesus' feet, learning from His wisdom rather than trying to do things in my own strength. But I find that so hard to do.
I wrote about finding the rhythm that works for me and my family recently; I'm still working on that if I'm honest!
I arrived at church a couple of Sundays ago totally at the end of myself, but with my keyboard ready to play. I could barely speak, let alone sing, so one of the guys helpfully suggested we prayed together before doing anything else. And what one of them prayed for me really stuck with me – here's a summary of it:
'Lord, Claire works so hard for you. Help her to learn to rest.'
I'm one of those people who find it difficult to sit down and relax until all the jobs in the house are done. I simply can't leave dirty dishes on the side or floors unvacuumed. That may be why our vacuum cleaner suddenly stopped working when I was midway through vacuuming one of the downstairs rooms that weekend. I still had the upstairs to do! But I simply couldn't, which meant that, after church that Sunday, we were able to settle down and have a family film time.
I was forced to rest.
Does God ever make you stop, through circumstances or even illness? If only we'd rest more regularly without Him having to step in and force us.
Almost every blog I subscribe to had been writing about the subject of rest that week. And yet I still ignored the message.
God's response? He forced me to rest again this weekend. We were hosting a lunch after church for around 40 people but I woke up without a voice and feeling dreadful. I looked at my husband – for the first time in a couple of months I wasn't serving at church so I simply said, "I can't cope with doing both church and the lunch." Gracefully, he recognised I needed some space and told me to take time for myself while the family was at church.
Of course, as soon as the door shut and the peace descended my mind raced with everything I could do to get ready for the lunch. I have to admit I did a little work, but then I felt a strong urge: rather than finishing off the jobs that needed doing I needed to rest.
So I did just that. Closed my eyes for a little while. Reflected on who God is for a bit, thanked Him for the chance to rest and then I found a novel I had been wanting to read for months and curled up with a cuppa and the book. Bliss...
I think it can be such a battle to rest regularly for a number of reasons. Perhaps we have an overinflated sense of responsibility for things. That might sound harsh, but I've been asking myself whether I'm guilty of that very thing. It could be due to busyness or just downright stubbornness.
Let's face it: we are all on the cultural hamster wheel of 'doing'. If we aren't living life at 110 per cent then we feel something is wrong with us. And it isn't just society's culture. Church culture can be the same. We preach grace but the expectation is that we 'do' plenty to show how committed we are.
I know there are jobs that need doing and I know that as church we are a body and each part needs to do what it is called to. But do we leave it there, or do we frantically try to do more than we should in an effort to look good?
Learn to rest.
I don't mean give up on all the responsibilities you have. But each of us needs regular rest to be able to function properly. God's wisdom shone through when He created the Sabbath – who are we to argue with it?
