“In peace I will lie down and sleep. For you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety” – Psalm 4:8
According to the dictionary, rest means to “cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover strength”. I could read that hundreds of times and still fail to internalize the importance of rest. Even more interesting is the definition often associated with a musical number, which is an “interval of silence of a specified duration”. I often associate silence with loneliness, isolation, or separation. Ironically, in the moments where I am physically still and there is silence, my mind is still racing, and I am already planning the next task or wondering what I can produce. It doesn’t sound too bad, until the realization sets in that even in those moments of “resting”, I am not truly at rest.
Some part of me is aware that this stems from a need I still have to feel in control of something. That even in my lessons of surrendering and praying for the will of God to be done, my prideful self still thinks I have a few good ideas and would just like God to hear them out; and that it wouldn’t hurt if He would adopt a couple here and there. How quickly I can forget where my ideas have brought me time and again. This includes my ideas about recovery.
My ever active and production focused mind easily slips into a space where doing more is better. Attend more meetings. Share more. Read more books. Adopt more tools. For me this can turn into “run as fast as you can away from the heart that keeps drawing you back to sin’. If outwardly, I am always busy working toward self-improvement, then there is no time to look inward. Where the real issue begins and ends. My heart needs change. And that kind of healing cannot be done without true rest.
But rest alone can only heal the spaces most visible to me. Jesus is the only one who can dig deeper, down into the caverns and spaces I wouldn’t dare to go myself. When I sit alone with Him to be silent and still, I find the true meaning, and beauty, of rest. And the healing begins.
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