Is rest merely a state of motionlessness or inactivity?

“Our lives are occupied territory…

Occupied by a cacophony of voices,

And the din undoes us.

In the daytime we have no time to listen,

Beset as we are by anxiety and goals

And assignments and work…”

It is one commodity that everyone wants, but no one knows what to do with it. Rest is that great desire that is ever within the reach of this production-driven society, but it is rarely enjoyed by even the strongest. In a world where production and consumerism are what shape identity, we find ourselves weary from a standard that can never be met. The goal always seems to be on the horizon. There is never an end to the toil and striving. And at the end of the day, there is no rest. We are deficient even of a working understanding of this richly biblical concept. Some common definitions of rest seem helpful, but still lacking:

A bodily state characterized by minimal functional and metabolic activities,

Freedom from activity or labor,

A state of motionlessness or inactivity, or

Peace of mind or spirit.

These modern definitions are helpful, but they fall short of the Old Testament biblical understanding of rest, or shabat. Throughout the Old Testament, the concept of rest is developed as not only an economic cessation from production, but also a theological act of trust in the sovereign Provider. For Israel, there was rich meaning infused in the halt of their production.

Shabat can be defined as “regular, disciplined, visible cessation of production.” This was a day for Israel to stop productive work and what could be considered “normal” activities. This Sabbath came to be for the Jews a visible, regular discipline that distinguished them from the general culture in which they were living their lives. Though there was some sort of shabat practiced in various nations around them, the shabat practiced by the Israelites was both economic – a refusal to define oneself by a sense of productivity – and theological – and active form of renouncing autonomy and self-sufficiency to the all-sufficient Creator, who himself rested as an example for us.

In Exodus 20, Moses delivers the Ten Commandments to the children of Israel. In verses 8-11, God spells out his rationale behind the institution of the Sabbath.

Remember the shabat, to keep it hold. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a shabat of YHWH your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days YHWH made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day and made it holy.

Saints gathered to celebrate shabat.

The shabat, here, is authorized by the memory that on the seventh day of creation, God rested from his work.  Cessation and rest are thus grounded in the very structure of creation as ordered and blessed by God. In this statute, rest becomes even more richly theological. Rest is tied to the work and nature of the Creator. A connection is established between shabat and Creation. The meaning of shabat is more than just “rest” or “relaxation,” but that which gives completeness, usually by bringing a series to an end. Therefore, as an end to the exodus, reflection on the shabat suggests building the tabernacle. This was the visible, disciplined expression of enjoying rest in communion with the Creator for the Israelite people.

As the concept of rest was developing throughout the Hebrew canon, the prophets recognized and preached it as an act that was definitive for their faith. Amos noted that shabat carried economic significance, as well.

Hear this, you who trample the needy

and do away with the poor of the land, saying,

“When will the New Moon be over

that we may sell grain,

and the Shabat be ended

that we may market wheat?”—

skimping the measure,

boosting the price

and cheating with dishonest scales,

buying the poor with silver

and the needy for a pair of sandals,

selling even the sweepings with the wheat. (8:4-6)

For the prophets, the practice of a regular, disciplined, visible cessation from production was “an act of resistance against having one’s life defied by one’s productivity” (also cf. Isaiah 56:3-7). Therefore, there was nothing strange or out of place with the conclusion that every seventh day God’s people were to renounce dominion over time, thereby renouncing autonomy, and recognize God’s dominion over time and thus over themselves. Keeping shabat  was an active acceptance of the sovereignty of God.

In the New Testament, the incarnate Maker of the Universe saw shabat as a blessing made for man. It was never meant to be a burden, but a blessing to be experienced He refused to allow his earthy life to be defined by the enormity of his production, but by his relationship with his heavenly Father. He took the blessing of shabat to a whole new level (cf. Matthew 12:1-12; Mark 2:23-27, 3:4, 6:2; Luke 4:16-31, 6:1-9, 13:14-16, 14:1-5; John 5:9-18, 7:22-23, 9:14-16).

Life is a consistent journey
to be lived corum deo.

For good reason, efforts are being made in the modern world to regain this sense of shabat. “In a consumer economy that is committed to endless growth and reducing everything to commodity, the competent can easily imagine that they are self-made, self-sufficient, and self-actualized, with no reference point beyond themselves.” Thus an effort that might be made to cease work for one day a week, must also be accompanied by an effort to curb consumption, the acknowledgement that life has not been handed over to us for our devouring. Just as rest is a gift, so God’s blessings are gifts. Like rest, they are meant to inspire us to worship, not idolatry. The mindset that feeds on society’s production and consumption says, “Without God, everything is possible.” But the intentional follower of the incarnate Maker, will rebel against the craze to get more and produce more. Life is not an endless pursuit of goods and accomplishments. It is a consistent journey to be lived corum deo – in the presence of God. Shabat provides a visible testimony that God is at the center of life. The one who consumes the most is not the most successful. He is just the fattest. The one who practices shabat in its fullest sense is the most successful. He is the one who communes with God and his people, and will experience great grace and provision.

   On Sunday, November 25th, the Grandmother Hall of Fame saw the passing of one of its foremost members. Louise Cole entered the unhindered presence of the Lord, and left us all missing her terribly.





   When I think of my grandma, many things come to mind. When she would wrap Christmas gifts, she would always hide the names of the recipients somewhere in the designs of the wrapping paper. My brother and I were the designated ones to find the names and distribute the gifts. Also on Christmas, she would always get me a new nutcracker (to add to my enromous collection). On New Year's day, we would always go to her house to watch college football and eat chili that she had prepared. It was at grandma's house that my brother and watched our first Saturday morning cartoons. It was at grandma's house that we first watched The Prestige and Miracle while eating a huge bowl of popcorn and drinking Diet Coke (a favorite of hers). I remember the time when she was about to tear off the head of the umpire who botched a call and made us lose our Little League District Final game. It took everything in my mom's persuasive power to calm her down. She was always our biggest fan. As my brother notes, there were only ever two people he could hear as he was playing, my dad and my gandma. I remember all the times she would take my brother and I to horse pulls in Northern Michigan. It was her goofy way of celebrating the fact that she could see us again after her winter in Florida.



   It was not subtle to anyone that she loved my brother an I, her only two grandchildren. As my grandpa told me today, "You and Benjamin are really the only reasons that grandma wanted to go on living at all. Otherwise, she was anxious to leave this world. She wanted to be with her precious Savior. She wanted to go 'home.'" That was another thing that was not subtle in her life; she was always anxious to meet Jesus face to face. In the songs she played, in the hymns she sung, in the words she spoke, in the letters she wrote us, she displayed an eagerness to be in perfect fellowship with the Lord. That legacy was passed on to us. When I think of her death, I am not overcome with grief. Yes, I do miss her a lot. But I am eternally happy for her. She is better off than all of us. She is experiencing the culmination of her salvation: glorification. It was an eternal joy when she was justified. There was rejoicing in the heavenly court. It was evident to the world to see her her sanctification unfold. But now, as I write, she can finally rest in the fulfillment and culmination of her salvation, the fact that she is completely freed from the presence of sin. Not only that, because her sin has been removed, and Christ's righteous record applies to her, she is granted complete and perfect access to the presence of God with out fear or shame. And in this, I am very happy for her.

   In the wake of her death, I am not angry at God for taking her from me. And I am not overwhelmed with my own finity, though it does come closer to home now. Instead, however, I yearn to leave a legacy of love and faithfulness only half as well as she did. I want to make every moment count. I want to live my purpose all the way to the end. And when I finish this race, I desire with everything in me to hear the Savior say, "Well done."

   P.S. Give Jesus a hug from me, Weezie.



A sermon I preached at First Baptist Church on 11-18-12

“Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry, and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord” (Hosea 1:2).

~ You never know the richness of love until you see it in the depths. ~

This was a woman who had been deeply affected by the moral laxity of her society, and God intended to use the prophet’s personal relationship with her as a penetrating object lesson of His own relationship with His unfaithful people, Israel. Whatever her past, there may have been some evidence of genuine repentance and faith in Jehovah. Maybe she had responded to the Spirit-filled ministry of Hosea himself, and he found his heart drawn to her in deep and unselfish love. God directed him to take her as his wife, and so it was that Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, became the unlikely wife of the budding young preacher.

The early days of their marriage were beautiful as their love began to blossom. And God blessed their union with a son. How Hosea’s heart must have swelled with joy! He was convinced that his marriage would be better than ever with this little one to brighten their home. God named the baby, for his name was to have prophetic significance to the nation. He called him Jezreel, because it was at Jezreel that King Jeroboam’s great grandfather Jehu had first come to the throne by ambitious crimes of bloodshed and violence. While his dynasty was prospering at the moment, its destruction was on the horizon and it would happen in the valley of Jezreel (Hos. 1:4, 5).

It was after the birth of Jezreel that Hosea seems to have noticed a change in Gomer. She became restless and unhappy, like a bird trapped in a cage. He went on preaching, encouraging the wayward nation to turn from its sin and trust God for deliverance from the threat of surrounding nations. “Return unto the Lord!” was the theme of his message, and he preached it repeatedly with power (Hos. 6:1; 14:1). But Gomer seemed less and less interested in his ministry. In fact, she may have grown to resent it. She probably even accused Hosea of thinking more about his preaching than he did of her. She began to find other interests to occupy herself, and spent more and more time away from home.

Scripture does not give us the details of what happened, but what it does say would permit us some speculation concerning the progressive trend that led to the tragic situation we eventually discover. Gomer’s absences from home probably grew more frequent and prolonged and soon Hosea was feeling pangs of suspicion about her faithfulness to him. He lay awake at night and wrestled with his fears. He preached with a heavy heart during the day. And his suspicions were confirmed when Gomer got pregnant again. It was a girl this time, and Hosea was convinced that the child was not his. At God’s direction, he called her Loruhamah, which means “unpitied” or “unloved,” implying that she would not enjoy her true father’s love. Again the name was symbolic of Israel’s wandering from God’s love and the discipline she would soon experience. But even that spiritual message could not soothe the prophet’s troubled soul.

No sooner had little Loruhamah been weaned than Gomer conceived again. It was another boy. God told Hosea to call him Lo-ammi, which meant “not my people,” or “no kin of mine.” It symbolized Israel’s alienation from Jehovah, but it also exposed Gomer’s sinful escapades. That child born in Hosea’s house was not his.

These are issues that the young preacher Hosea had to wrestle with when God placed the command on his life to marry a known prostitute as an example of his relationship with Israel. Just imagine the heart break he went through as he realized that he no longer would be able to marry a virgin. He would not give her her first kiss. He would not be able to have a pure marriage. Others to whom he had ministered would lose all respect for him. His preaching ministry would no longer be taken seriously. It was the death of a dream – devastating for any young preacher.

How do you respond to the death of a dream?

What is the right response when you realize that life as you know it will only get more difficult?

I do not want to share with you from Hosea’s perspective. And I do not want to necessarily approach it from Gomer’s either, but from my own as I reflected on the story. See, as I read the intriguing story of Hosea and Gomer, I am struck, not with an indignation for Gomer, but with an extremely uncomfortable connection with her. I see me in her. This story is spelled out as a true story that resembles God's relationship with his people. So I easily find myself understanding Gomer more than I would care to admit. When I am honest with myself, I must admit that my heart is exactly like hers. I commit spiritual adultery with the idols of my heart incessantly - like Gomer with her lovers.

YET...God loves me passionately. This is the crazy thing that gets me about this story. He knows me completely. And as J.I. Packer said in Knowing God,

What matters supremely is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it — the fact that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him because he first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is not a moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters. This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort — the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, not enervates — in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.

His love for me is "utterly realistic." This is crazy!!! As we see in the book of Hosea, his love is never half-hearted.

I challenge you to let yourself grasp this today. God knows you completely and realistically. But he loves you passionately. His love for you is never half-hearted. If you are finding yourself to be more like Gomer than you would care to admit, turn back to God and let his love fill you again.



My heart often wanders from
the One I love





Wanderer...

 I am a wanderer.


As I was praying this morning, I began to get frustrated with how quickly my heart wanders from a desire for my God. I am in his presence, but my mind and heart are elsewhere. And then I realize it, and regain my focus. And then, before I know it, I am a-wandering again. And I wonder why this is the case, that my heart is so prone to wander and desire other things. But I think it only points to a deeper issue. Often I find my heart flirting with and longing for other things. My desires are not too strong. They are too weak. As C.S. Lewis aptly quipped,

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

This is the state I find my heart in.

I have been reading through the book of Hosea. I am struck, not with an indignation for Gomer, but with an extremely uncomfortable connection with her. I see me in her. This story is spelled out as a true story that resembles God's relationship with his people. So I easily find myself understanding Gomer more than I would care to admit. When I am honest with myself, I must admit that my heart is exactly like hers. It is an idol factory. As John Calvin is known for saying,

The human heart is a factory of idols…Everyone of us is, from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.

My heart is an idol factory, and I commit spiritual adultery with my idols incessantly - like Gomer with her lovers. YET...God loves me passionately. He knows me completely (cf. Psalm 139:1-4). And as J.I. Packer said in Knowing God,

What matters supremely is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it — the fact that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him because he first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is not a moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters. This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort — the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, not enervates — in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.

His love for me is "utterly realistic." This is amazingly crazy!!! As as we see in the book of Hosea, his love is never half-hearted.

I challenge you to let yourself grasp this today. God knows you completely and realistically. But he loves you passionately. His love for you is never half-hearted.