Sanctuary: Cultivating a Quiet LifeSample

Day #5: To Cease All Striving

In today’s noisy world, one of the loudest messages we hear is, “Live your best life now!” Then we push ourselves hard to make our so-called “one life” a good one as if everything is up to us. This is at the root of our hustle and striving—to make good things happen for ourselves and to experience as many of those good things as possible while we can. But the underlying theme of this message—that we have only “one life”—is fundamentally untrue.

As believers in the risen Christ, we’re not given “one life” on this earth, and then that’s it: game over. To be a follower of Christ means we are no longer citizens of this world; we are citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20). This world is not our home. We are pilgrims passing through to a better place. We know this to be true because Jesus himself declared that he was going ahead of us to “prepare a place” for each of his followers (John 14:1-3).

To lead a quiet life is to hold the conviction that this life here and now is not all there is. When our circumstances threaten to unravel us, we are held by the Spirit of God inside us, knowing that no matter what happens, nothing in this world is permanent. A better world, and a better life, awaits. This is the crux of the hope we have because of Christ.

There’s an inner resoluteness that comes from knowing that there is a world beyond this world and that God is completely in control of all of it. We don’t have to stress ourselves out by taking on too many commitments or by saying yes to too many things because we’re not going to miss out on anything important. Instead, we can trust that every aspect of our lives is ordered and ordained by God in Heaven. We can breathe easy knowing that time isn’t running out. We have eternity ahead of us.

C.S. Lewis once remarked that “Glory means good report with God.” In other words, the glory we should desire most is to hear one day that divine accolade, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:23). If this is truly what we aspire to hear one day, then that inner drive to take on too much will dissipate as Christ’s peace fills us.

Cultivate

Let’s practice shifting our perspective. Take a moment and look around you. What do you see? Note your surroundings. Then remind yourself that everything you see is temporal. Then close your eyes and ask God to help you remember that there is so much more than what we can see with our eyes. Today isn’t about doing as much as it is about seeing—seeing the things around us and the activities in front of us as temporary things in a temporary world.

To help you dive further into the topic of true rest, I’ve written a 31-day devotional that explores what it means and what it looks like in very practical ways to lead the “quiet life” that Paul speaks of in 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12. You can grab a copy of Sanctuary at The Good Book Company website.