Resting In Love

As many can testify they love God but fewer can say they rest well in His love.

You may find prayer laborious. You try to find the right words or you just don't speak at all. You feel an overwhelming sense of failure and shame that somehow you missed God. And you secretly wonder if He missed you altogether as if you are invisible. Reading the Bible is dry and boring but you plow through reading the Scriptures because it's something required as a believer. You been taught to stay in the Word to ward off temptation and the devil rather than enjoy the heart of God. Attending church is work in itself. Meeting and greeting those on Sunday morning requires a stiff upper lip and repeating catches phrases like "God bless you!" or "Oh, I'm doing great."

Truth be told you are exhausted and frustrated by the outward performance of Christian living. You have this nagging feeling there must be more to this life in Christ than what you are experiencing.

Beloved, Christ provides grace in our walk with Him so we can rest assured in His unchanging love for us. Otherwise, the Christian walk becomes a legalistic duty of dos and don'ts and we miss the rich rewards of knowing His heart and His ways. After Jesus rose from the dead He meets with three people in John 20 and 21.

Mary came to the tomb in expectations to see a dead Christ not a risen and living Savior. When Jesus called her name it says she turned to Him. Her eyes were open to see Him not as the gardener as she first thought but Rabboni, her teacher. He instructed her that from this moment onward she would need to relate to Him through faith. His bodily form would not be necessarily seen (except through the expression of His church) but that He must be perceived through faith (John 20:17). To the extend beloved we rest well in love is the measure we trust Him when He can not be seen in our lives.

To rest in His love means a shift in our focus away from the natural to the supernatural.

Thomas was such a man who had to see and touch in order to believe Christ was alive. In His mercy the Lord took up his offer and allowed Thomas the joy of touching Him. However, the Lord ordered him to stop doubting and believe (John 20:27). There is a time in our Christian walk where we must stop limiting God to work through our lives. Resting well in love means we make no demand of Him to give us reasons and explanations about His ways. Too believers want answers before they will give themselves completely to God. The Lord will give us a portion of knowledge and we are to walk in that light of truth believing He will direct us along the way - not blindly and randomly - but with purpose that one day it will become very clear.

The last individual was Peter. It was not an issue of faith that Jesus wanted to deal with Peter though he denied Him. And it was not an issue of demanding evidence that He had risen like Thomas. The issue was love. Jesus asked three times if Peter loved Him (John 21: 15-17). I believe the same question will be asked of us that cuts through all the questions, doubts and fears. How we respond to Jesus shows if we are able to let go and lean back on His chest like the beloved disciple.

These three individuals (and others) had to relate to Christ differently after His resurrection. The depth of their love expressed through faith and obedience was a sure testimony of their rest in God's love for them.

If you don't rest well in love ask the Lord to quicken your heart to be open to Him. Perhaps you were wounded as a child or suffered from those in church who may have been unkind or cruel. Your heart shut down but worse you hold God to a distance and relate to Him from a place of pain and unbelief. Your view of Christ may be like Mary who could not comprehend a resurrected Christ and of her life He wanted to make alive again. Or perhaps you demand evidence and answers to your questions so your mind can rest in the Lord like Thomas but it requires faith. Faith in a real God who may not always be evident in the natural. Or it could be a matter of a love for the Lord given to others as Jesus tells Peter to feed His sheep. The same sheep that might have hurt and wounded you.

Beloved, let us not be those who refuse the rest found in His love as Isaiah 30:15 tells us, "This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. But you would have none of it." (NLT).