By His Grace: Giving Up the Grind and Embracing God's Grace This Easterনমুনা

Day 6

Grace is the key to rest.

Many Christian books and articles about rest have come out in the past few years. I think this is because our society has a collective felt-need for real rest. It is no secret that multi-tasking, extracurriculars, and productivity are king according to our culture. Doing more is rewarded in our workplaces and schools. In fact, even the foster care agency I worked with offered incentives for foster parents to keep children continuously enrolled in extracurricular activities. A lot of pressure is placed on people to stay busy, check goals off a list, and produce tangible results.

Not surprisingly, this has produced burnout and the beginnings of a movement towards ‘slower living.’ When I see videos of people pursuing a “slow” and “intentional” lifestyle, which usually involves cooking from scratch and trading energy drinks for tea, something like craving bubbles inside me. Yet, when I try to imitate these practices, it only takes a few days to start feeling grossly behind on work and school commitments for myself and my children. I can find the willpower to abstain from work for a time physically, but I can’t escape the internal whisper reminding me that there is more to do. Even when my body is resting, I often feel restless.

Read Luke 10:38-42. The story of Mary and Martha offers us a portrait of a restless woman and a woman who is at rest. Martha is focused on work that needs to be done but craves rest. When she sees her sister Mary resting, she feels jealous and addresses Jesus about her feelings. Jesus advises her to remember that only one thing is necessary. What is the one necessary thing? It is Jesus’ gracious presence!

When Jesus died on the cross, he said, “It is finished.” The things necessary for our eternal well-being are already finished because Christ has done them for us. Nothing you are going to do will add to your value as a person or to your children’s value. Having a cleaner house, working out more consistently, and striving towards financial security do not change your standing before God. Your only necessary “work” is to confess that Jesus’ work on the cross is sufficient, and everything else that you do is valuable only insofar as it better equips you to speak Christ into your community.

As long as you are governed by various things you feel you should do, you cannot experience rest fully. When you accept that there is only one thing necessary to have a full life, and it has already been accomplished and handed down to you by Jesus, you will be prepared to experience Easter’s sweet rest.

Reflection

Read the Bible passage slowly and carefully. Reflect on what you have read, and consider the following questions:

1. I have always struggled with exercises that require me to prioritize how I spend my time based on how important things are, because the truth is that many things are not important because of their direct relation to my Christian mission, but they are important for supporting my mission. Make a list of things that you do throughout the day and write what the function of each task is. Do you have any tasks that do not have a function which supports your work of being a missionary in your environment? What things might replace those sorts of tasks?

2. How can you make time and space for Sabbath in your life? Even if you do not devote an entire day to Sabbath, when can you commit to resting and how will you keep that time sacred?

Response

Pray, and tell God what you learned from this Bible passage. Ask God to illuminate anything that you are struggling to grasp. Consider what you learned about who God is, and use what you have learned to direct your worship.