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What comes to mind when you think of rest?

Do warm and fuzzy images of your bed or favorite napping location pop into mind?

God designed our bodies for rest. In fact, rest is so important physically, spiritually, and emotionally that He modeled rest for us.

Genesis 2:2-3 says, By the seventh day God completed His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.  God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it He rested from His work of creation.

Was God tired? Did he have sleepy eyes? No, of course not.

Rest and sleep are not synonyms.

Rest involves taking time to meditate on our actions. We are to rest in God alone and take comfort in His promises.

We are not to neglect rest and become frantic or idolize rest and be lazy.

Rest has a proper place. Rests in music provide dramatic pauses and time for musicians to take a breath. Halftime at soccer matches provide athletes time to recover, strategize, and eat orange slices. What’s a song that’s only rests or a game that’s only halftime?

When was the last time you rested? Not slept. Not napped. But rested? I was told that a private school in town does the same thing at the end of every school day – they take a quiet moment to reflect on their decisions during the day. Wow! We could all take a lesson from these students. How much better would we all reflect Christ if we took several minutes during lunch to reflect on our mornings’ decisions and think ahead to our afternoons.

My nephew’s 4-D ultrasound.

My week-old nephew.

I spent last Monday in Memphis, eagerly sitting in a hospital room, happy. Happy because we made it in time. Happy because this hospital visit was to await life, not a diagnosis or death.

By supper, I was holding my hour-old nephew, his eyes wide open to this world he will live in.

Tuesday my coworker texted that she, too, had given birth that morning. I held this five-hour life, sound asleep, his long, slender fingers grasping mine with tremendous strength for one so little.

And Thursday and Friday I sat in Memphis once again, nurturing this nephew of mind, marveling at this creation in my lap. As I snuggled with him on the couch, I reflected on this week of life that the Lord had granted me and these thoughts came to mind.

• God gives breath and God takes breath away. Holding an infant is all the sweeter after walking through the valley of still-borns and miscarriages with friends. Even as we waiting during labor, we worried that complications would crop up quickly and take the doctors by surprise. 
• Adoption is an urgent issue. On Orphan Sunday (November 3rd), I learned that there are 420 children in the Madison County region that need homes and 125 that need foster parents.  As I fed, burped, and endlessly changed diapers, I found myself putting faces to adoption. There are babies in cribs right now without a mother waking to their cries. These babies become toddlers, teens, and adults who need families. God adopted us as His children, in turn, we need to find ways to support and adopt these children.
• “Miracle” is an insufficient word for a newborn. The tiny fingerprint alone is something to marvel at. Even more the way this vulnerable baby knows to take its first breath. No Accident is powerful enough to knit a life together in a mother’s womb.

Can you hear me now?

Probably not.

But if you click here you can!

Thanks to the progress of technology and the invention of recorders that connect to microphones, I am pleased to announce that you can listen to my latest talk to the youth group of First Baptist Church in Jackson, TN.

Check it out and let me know how it sounds!

This summer, I departed from my usual Christian-themed and classic recreational reading for a more contemporary twist to my free time. I have previously blogged about whether or not entertainment is harmless, and this blog builds upon those three points: 1. The journey matters 2. We can never shut off our brains 3. Be careful what you recommend.

Last month, I finished reading the #1 New York Times Bestseller Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, subtitled “One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia.”

The novel begins with these words: Culturally, though not theologically, I’m a Christian.

At this point in my reading journey, I contemplated setting the book aside and not reading farther. But I remembered how my Christian friends flocked to the movie theaters when this became a movie staring Julia Roberts.

When you watch the trailer, nothing jumps out at you as overtly spiritual. But the book is truly one woman’s search for god.

Here are a couple quotes to guide you through the novel’s spiritual quest.

Traditionally, I have responded to the transcendent mystics of all religions. I have always responded with breathless excitement to anyone who has ever said that God does not live in a dogmatic scripture or in a distant throne in the sky, but instead abides very close to us indeed – much closer than we can imagine, breathing right through our own hearts.

In the end, what I have come to believe about God is simple. It’s like this – I used to have this really great dog. She came from the pound. She was a mixture of about ten different breeds, but seemed to have inherited the finest features of them all. She was brown. When people asked me, “What kind of dog is that?” I would always give the same answer: “She’s a brown dog.” Similarly, when the question is raised,  “What kind of God do you believe in?” my answer is easy: “I believe in a magnificent God.”

 

I knew then that this is how God loves us all and receives us all, and that there is no such thing in this universe as hell, except maybe in our own terrified minds. Because if even one broken and limited human being could experience even one such episode of absolute forgiveness and acceptance of her own self, then imagine – just imagine! – what God, in all His eternal compassion, can forgive and accept.

 

Reading this book challenged me in a refreshing way. I have been struggling with a lack of passion in my prayer life this summer. I was then confronted with a novel whose leading lady would spend a minimum of 1 hour in complete silence, meditating to her “god” daily. She went so far as to live in India, follow a guru, and take a vow of silence in order to get in better touch with her “inner god.”  She would wake up at 4:00 a.m. in order to have more time with the divine.

How convicting is it that this real-life lady would sacrifice her life in pursuit of a false god when I have the true God who created the Universe and cannot focus for fifteen minutes at a time when I am in His presence?

As I finished the book, I turned it over to the back cover and looked eye to eye with the author who had lived this life. Without realizing it, I found myself praying that one day she would encounter the true Yahweh God and she would regret every last copy of this book that was sold. I prayed for her salvation and that she would have another Bestselling book, this time, pointing people to Scripture, not to a self-led journey.

1. Close theology is wrong theology. Our Yahweh God is a magnificent God; she is right about that. But He is not magnificent because He is a mix of everything we want. He’s not a trail mix that you can choose what to add to your batch. He’s the King who reigns whether or not we acknowledge Him. He’s the Priest who intercedes for us, even when we don’t have words to utter.

2. Beautiful rhetoric does not equal proper applications. Possibly my favorite quote from the entire book is the first one listed above. I don’t believe in a God confined to dogmatic Scripture either. I believe in a God who is active and living, a God whose Word is sharper than any double-edged sword.

3. Entertainment is not harmless. The author of this book is clear about her viewpoint of God. As Christians, we need to be able to hold discussions with friends as to why this book is not correct. We do not need to read non-Christian books if they will cause us to stumble. But as we grow in Christ, we need to be able to refute lies.

4. Even untruth leads to the Gospel. Some books are best left unread. But I felt strongly that I had something to gain with this one. I wanted a refresher course on how much of our world views religion. I now have the facts to argue against this book. I can meet a friend over coffee to discuss specific passages and why a self-made god is a worthless idol. We cannot redeem the book, but we can redeem our conversations by using even a non-Christian book as an entryway to the Gospel.

Jesus told them: “The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” Luke 10:2

The North American Mission Board (NAMB), challenged our nation’s churches to pray Luke 10:2 everyday at 10:02. And since last night was October 2, churches around the nation (including mine) held a special prayer service for God to send laborers into the field.

As one of the volunteers in the youth group, I know how hard working in the field is. Every student is at a different stage in their walk with God. Some are blossoming and ready to join us as workers. Others are still a little green on the vine and need more time and maturity. And still more are like the Basil seeds I’m trying to sprout on paper towels in my kitchen – they are surrounded by everything they need but rather than sprout, grow, and produce good fruit, they are rotting.

My heart breaks – What if the workers are afraid to go into the fields? What will happen to the harvest?

Last night, I had to repent of a lack of prayerfulness. As I sat in the pew, surrounded by youth students, I remembered that God and God alone will have to break the hard soil of their hearts. I asked God that He would send co-laborers to my field in particular – that other adults would flock to these students and show them what life looks like centered around Christ.

And then it hit me – that almighty conviction from the Holy Spirit – I am a laborer, too. I always assumed that being in the field automatically won me the prize for laborer of the year. But just because I’m here, doesn’t mean I’m working diligently and intentionally following God’s guidance.

So I found myself in a state of prayerfulness (which is particularly good, especially when sitting in a prayer service). All of this was compounded by a novel I finished the week (blog post to come) about a lady who prayed for two hours a day but not to our Yahweh God but to “god” (really to herself). If she can sit in meditation daily to a fake deity that cannot answer her, surely I can pray throughout my lunch break to the Mighty God who is able to save.