The Rest Of Your LifeSample

The weary soul

Our schedules are so toxic that we have forgotten what it feels like not to RUSH everywhere. Busyness is not listed in the Bible as a spiritual gift! Yet we celebrate it as if it is. We ask how someone is, and when we get a list of the 10 things they have just done, we can feel awed, impressed and even unworthy. But should we?

C.S. Lewis wrote, “The moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists of shoving it all back, in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.” 

I know that feeling well. If I am honest, there are many times in my own life where the demands on my time seem to reach epic proportions. I buy into the lie that I somehow have to achieve 41 things before breakfast. 

I love what Paul Maxwell writes:

“Our rest is not measured in minutes or hours, but in proximity. Sabbath is a day, but it is also a place with God — a place he makes, where he pursues us…”

This is beautifully true.

In our reading today from Jeremiah 31, verse 25 wraps itself around my heart. It is where God says to us:

“For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.” (ESV)

What a wonderful promise that is! 

How is your soul today? Are you weary? Do you feel as though you are languishing? That word “languishing” is defined in the dictionary as “to grow weak, to decay or to decline”. Is that you today?

If it is, let me encourage you in the words of Victor Hugo. “Go to sleep in peace. God is awake.” 

We don’t need to lose our own peace or sleep because of fear, anxiety or stress. God goes to work on our behalf, fighting our battles and bringing us His life and salvation. Whatever storms we face in life, it is possible to hold on to the truth that God is with us through them.

Pray: 

Father, thank you for your promise that You will satisfy my weary soul and find the places in me that need Your life-giving touch. Amen