Work and RestSample

Speak to your soul when you feel restless

Being a Christian and having found rest in God, doesn’t mean we’ll always be at peace. All too quickly, we feel troubled by worries,  overfilled schedules, or by a lack of quiet time with the Lord. Satan can use such moments to attack us and make us restless and “cast down”. David experienced such a time when he wrote Psalm 42. His soul was in turmoil within him, as he vividly expresses in verse 5.

But note how David reacts. He preaches to himself, so to speak: “Why are you cast down, o my soul…? Hope in God!”. Psalm 116:7 says in a similar way: “Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you”.

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of the Lord’s mercy. We need to turn our focus from our sorrows and difficulties towards God’s unchanging love.

If we seek refuge with our loving and faithful Father, our hearts will be filled with peace again. The same David whose heart was so cast down expresses this in another Psalm:

“I have calmed and quieted my soul,

    like a weaned child with its mother;

    like a weaned child is my soul within me” (Psalm 131:2)

Do you experience times of unrest? “Hope in God”!