Rest

If there is one thing which characterizes our human world it is the absence of rest.
 
There is a painting which shows a seashore in the midst of a storm.
     There, among the crashing waves, is a great rock
          and in the cranny of the rock a little bird sitting upon its nest...
               at rest, unafraid and unaffected by the crash of the elements.

How easily the world impinges upon the lives of mankind.
     How easily the problems of the world outside become our own.
          How easily we lose our peace in the storm.

A song says:
     "There is no life - no life without its hunger;
     Each restless heart beats so imperfectly."
It is true in the imperfection of our lives,
and in an imperfect world there is no security - no rest.

Revelation 6.4 speaks of peace being taken from the earth .
     Does that seem to be what is unleashed in a measure even now?
          Where do we go when there is nowhere to go?

Jesus in John 16,22 speaks of joy which no man may take away.
It is a part of the world which God opens to His own -
     where peace, assurance and rest are ever-flowing.

Hebrews 4.11 says, "Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest."
There is a rest which is beyond anything which this earth can touch,
but it is not a superficial, automatic thing.
     It is reached at the end of a pathway of searching.
          It is found beyond the limits of our own strength and understanding.

              As we, with all our strength, 
              take hold of God alone,
              we will find in Him 
              a perfect peace - a perfect rest which is not of this earth.

Following to a Destiny

Abraham, spent his life searching.

We hear much about his travels and trials,
    and the years of his pilgrimage.
We hear about his encounters with God,
    and we draw our lessons from them.

What we don't seem to hear much about is the final end of Abraham's search -
    the thing that motivated him to leave the wealth and comfort of Ur.

What was it that caused Abraham,
    like a migrating bird leaving its nest,
        to uproot his home and step out into the unknown?

In Hebrews 11.8 we read that:
    he had a Call,
        he had Promise ... a land to inherit.
Above all He had a Vision of a City not of earth,
    a city built and fashioned by God.

Abraham's journey was not so much from Ur to Canaan,
    as it was from Earth to Heaven,
        from the seen to the Unseen,
            from the temporal to the Eternal,
                from the dwellings of man to the dwelling of God.

This, says Hebrews, was what he sought.
    He sought through the days, months and years in which he was a pilgrim.
        Even when he reached the promised land he dwelt there as a stranger.
For him there was no settled place of rest.
    For him all of earth was but another step in the journey to a better land.

It is easy to lose sight of the preeminence of the spiritual element in the lives of the men of the Bible -
    easy to see the revelations and events of their lives,
        their meetings with God and their faith
            to see things brought to pass.
But it is hard to see beyond all the earthly realm of their existence,
    and to somehow capture in our spirits what they felt burning as a vision within.

Enoch "walked with God." (Gen. 5.22)
    Abraham was called "the Friend of God" (Jas. 2.23)
        And on through the Old Testament God's servants saw Him above all earthly things.
        Their earthly journey only had value in as much as it related to the Heavenly.

As time passes and darkness descends upon our generation
    the need is ever more imperative for the children of God to look
        beyond the cloudy realms of earth to the Ever-Shining Light.

Darkness and Light.

Job cries:
"Where is the way where light dwelleth?
and as for darkness, where is the place thereof?" (Job 38.19)

When God created the world the first thing He put in place was light.
When man sinned he lost his inner spiritual light, and entered into a world of darkness.
    And ever since that fatal day man walks with uncertain steps,
        surrounded by the depths of darkness.

Job's cry is the cry of every seeking soul of man,
    a cry for sight, for clarity,
        for the sureness of the knowledge ,which only sight can give.
God's work in the lives of His own parallels His work in the physical creation.
    He is Light, and His promise to His own is that they
        "shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." (Jn. 8.12)

Just as we advance from faith to faith
    so also is there an advancing from light to light.
It is a sad fact that throughout the church of God there are so many,
    in whose lives, in whose experience, there is so little light.

If we are to find God in the dimension which He desires to show us, Job's cry must find an echo in our hearts...
    "Where is the way?"
        "Where is the Light?'
When man sinned he lost his inner spiritual light, and entered into a world of darkness.
    Since that fatal day man walks with uncertain steps,
        surrounded by the depths of darkness.

It is a wondrous thing when Light fills the being within,
    and a wondrous thing when that Light finds an open door
        allowing it to flow out to this world around.

God does not want for us to be
"A garden inclosed ... a spring shut up, a fountain sealed." (Sngs 4.12)

When He does His work of enlightening within,
and opens the life's doors, then all is changed.

Here is Life in abundance within and without.
    Here is our ministry, to Him and to others.
        There is no other way.

Awake ... Take Hold

Can we see what is going on around us? 
     There are so many voices.
          There are so many explanations,
          so many dreams, "revelations" and "prophecies."

There is so much talk that is superficial,
     so much that is trivial.
The unchangeable purposes and workings of God
     seem somehow to have been lost in the search for "relevance"
     and immediacy
So much seems to be about "communication" -
     only seeking a response from the hearers,
          the "method" has usurped the "message" 
          and the Voice has been lost.

The blind are unaware when their leader is also blind. 
The Voice in the desert proclaiming the Unchangeable is hardly heard among us.
The Word  has been replaced by the media as we look for meaning.

Some may be satisfied in hearing and talking about the superficial or the trivial.
Some may be like the Athenians ever searching for some new thing,
     but others, in sincerity, are searching for answers,
          and unsatisfied, search on to find a meaning for this hour.
 

Jeremiah laments, (2.13) "my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Isaiah declares (64.7) "There is none that calleth upon Thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of Thee: for Thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities."
     This the failing today -
     a forsaking of that which is living,
     and a digging that which is flawed. 

Lay hold on Life - it is not an easy thing, nor passive...(we are accustomed to think it is...)
     It is about waking up from our sleep.

     It is about Faith.

     It is about taking hold the One we Know.

     It is about looking unto Him.

"O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto Thee?" (Ps.89.8)

In these uncertain times, "God is our Refuge,"

     our Strength, our Hiding Place, our Life, our Peace,

          and looking unto Him we are changed.
Then, with clear vision, the earthly is transcended

     and the sure abode of the heavenly is known -

          earth's uncertainties are replaced by heaven's certainties.

              The shaking and fears of earth are swallowed up 
                   in the Unchangeable Kingdom of God.