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.