Choosing Rest

Andy Manley

Leading up to Easter, I was thinking about the idea of how the Sabbath connects to what Jesus did on the cross. 

Hebrews 4:9-10 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. 

The Sabbath is a picture of God’s grace. Grace gives us the opportunity to rely on God and not our own effort. It isn’t about how much we can accomplish. It is about what Jesus did on the cross. The peace that this brings us is rest.

You ever had a day off and felt like you could take a deep breath? We start to laugh a little bit more. We start to realize that the pressure we feel at times isn’t necessary. Rest is such a great example of God’s grace. But rest is stepping back from our effort. 

The hardest part about rest is that we have to choose to do it. There are always things trying to grab our attention and fill up our schedule. I heard someone talking about the idea of how as time goes on, we typically say yes to more things. However, as we say yes, we rarely let go of things. This ends up with more commitments than we can keep up with. An author named Bob Goff is famous for quitting something every Thursday. He talks about this concept in his book Love Does. He one time tweeted, “It’s Thursday. Quite something. Eliminate some of the noise in your life and let your symphony have the stage again.” I’m not saying we need to quit something every Thursday. But if we want to rest, we have to choose to do it. 

And when we rest, we’re choosing to trust God’s grace.