Trust & Rest

Too Much For Too Long

How many of us are just plain tired? Not the kind that comes after a busy day, but the tired that settles in after too much for too long. We live in a busy culture. Packed schedules, emotional demands, stress and worries, pressure from every angle. Distractions everywhere. Media outlets have figured out how to keep people glued by making them scared or angry. There is so much about modern life that is incredible and worth gratitude, and yet we are tired.

The reasons vary, and they matter. But none of them change what Jesus offers to the weary. Nothing about cultural shifts or the differences between our moment and the first century revokes His invitation.

Matthew 11:28 says, "Then Jesus said, 'Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.'"

Rest For The Weary

Matthew 11:28-30 says, "Then Jesus said, 'Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.'"

A yoke pairs two animals together to share the load. Jesus invites a partnership with Him. The writers of the New Testament point to Sabbath as a teacher that pointed beyond itself to a greater rest, and Jesus is the complete fulfillment of that promise. In Him there is rest for our souls.

Yet this can feel like a nice idea that does not match daily experience. Many are following Jesus and still feel exhausted. The heart of this message is that His promise of rest would not stay as poetic language, but become something we actually enjoy and experience as we walk with Him.

Trust And Rest

Here is the turn. What would increase our ability to rest is increasing our trust in who God is. Our ability to rest and the depth of our trust are interwoven. If trust in the Lord is shaky, then rest in Him will be compromised. If trust is strong, if we trust His sovereignty, if we trust that He is true to His word and faithful to His promises, then life may still be a challenge, but it becomes far easier to rest in Him.

Psalm 91:1-2 says, "Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety, he is my God, and I trust him."

This is first things first. Build trust and rest will follow. We see the connection in everyday life. Around someone untrustworthy, it is impossible to relax. In a workplace where a supervisor seems determined to push you out, peace is hard to find. At a wedding when something important is forgotten and someone offers to grab it, your calm depends on who that someone is. Trust changes how the heart rests. The same is true with the Lord. The core statement hangs here: To experience more of the rest Jesus promised, strengthen your trust in Him.

Made For You

Mark 2:27 says, "Jesus said to them, 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.'"

Sabbath is not a box to check. It is a gift. In the ancient world there was no 40 hour workweek and no two day weekend. Many lived with poverty and uncertainty about their next meal. A tiny number were wealthy, and far fewer would resemble what we call middle class. For most people, a day off was unheard of. The people of God stood out because they stopped. This was one reason their neighbors resented them. Even when empires pressed their demands, this pattern of stopping could not easily be conscripted.

Working one day less than everyone else was an act of trust. It was trusting that God would provide, that what could be done in six days would be blessed and prove to be enough. It looked like 14 percent less labor and, by normal math, 14 percent less productivity. Yet God called His people to rest and to trust Him to supply. These were real families living day to day, not theory on a page. For the well off, stopping may have felt easy. For those near the edge, stopping instead of earning another day’s pay was a tough command. Sabbath is the Old Testament’s most obvious picture of rest, and it is a nationwide call to trust.

Sleep In Storms

The difficulty of worry, fear, and feeling overwhelmed is real, whether or not you are literally in a boat during a storm. The story in Mark 4 shows Jesus asleep in a storm while His disciples panic. He then stills the wind and waves with a word. He does not only speak to children to be quiet. He speaks to the storm. He is over everything.

He shared that when his kids were younger and he was on the phone, the most he could do was tell them to be quiet. That is the limit of human authority. Jesus calms a storm. If trust in Him grows, if confidence in His authority deepens, then maybe we can sleep in storms too. Maybe we can truly enjoy the rest He promises.

Strengthen Your Trust

How to strengthen trust in God begins simply.

Remember your stories. Talk about the moments God showed up. Write them down. Tell and retell. This is why holidays exist all over the world. Veterans Day this week. Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up. Anniversaries that are marked every year. They help us remember. Share these stories with your children. He shared that this past year, they spent time telling the story of God’s incredible faithfulness in their family’s life. This was a massive part of Old Testament life. In addition to the weekly Sabbath, there were annual festivals to remember specific moments in history.

Deuteronomy 6:20-22 says, "In the future your children will ask you, 'What is the meaning of these laws, decrees, and regulations that the Lord our God has commanded us to obey?' Then you must tell them, 'We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with his strong hand. The Lord did miraculous signs and wonders before our eyes, dealing terrifying blows against Egypt and Pharaoh and all his people.'"

You will naturally forget unless you tell and retell. Kids need to know. Parents are the primary disciple makers for their children.

Listen to others. Be inspired, not jealous. Pay attention to testimonies. All through the New Testament and church history, the sharing of the gospel is accompanied by telling and retelling what God has done. Imagine someone you know and trust telling you the storm story. Hearing from someone you trust strengthens your own trust.

Take a step of faith. Faith functions like a muscle. Use it and it grows stronger. To grow in trust means exercising trust. Maybe you already know the step you are supposed to take. Maybe you need to take it to the Lord in prayer. He shared how in their home they push their kids to be bold, even with small things like speaking to the person at the counter to order their own food. They are starting to see the kids become more comfortable stepping out. If everything is always done for them, talking to grown ups feels deeply intimidating. In the same way, when we take a step with the Lord and discover that it is all right and He can be trusted, the next step gets a little bigger. As we respond in obedience, Spirit led and following His lead, we see that He is worthy of trust. Seeing His faithfulness firsthand is a key part of strengthening trust, and that trust opens the door to the rest we all desperately need.

Psalm 91:1-2 says, "Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety, he is my God, and I trust him."

Not Knowing Is Okay

Proverbs 20:24 says, "The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?" Isaiah 55:8-9 says, "'My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,' says the Lord. 'And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.'"

Trust is not dependent on our ability to understand. We board planes without knowing how every system works. We invest for the future without understanding every market force. We sit under a roof without personally calculating every load bearing requirement. We may not see what God is doing and we may never fully understand, and that is part of trust.

There is also a difference between rest and laziness. The word lazy shows up in the Old Testament repeatedly, especially in Proverbs. If you feel guilty at the idea of rest, the kind of person who feels relentless pressure to go and achieve, you will decline His invitation because you mislabel it as laziness. That needs correcting. The flip side is real as well. If you lean toward laziness, you can mistake the invitation to rest as an excuse. The difference is simple. Real rest looks back at what has been done and prepares for what is next. Laziness tries to escape responsibility and is not refreshing.

Make your down time count. Many of us have pockets of time that could be restful, but we fill them with things that stress us out. We doomscroll and get annoyed at whatever happened in the news today. We cannot relax, so we try to stay productive on our phones. Push aside the things that add to worry. Some young adults have even tried a small reset like no phone for two hours. Practicing Sabbath is not just about not going to work. It is about breathing and being with the people closest to you. Enjoy time that achieves nothing. Do not feel guilty about having nothing to show for your down time. Resist the pressure to compete with everyone else’s pace. He shared about youth sports where a player left a game early to dash to another tournament. People are free to plan their schedules, but they choose rest over frantic running. Trust in the Lord changes the equation. If you are confident in His promises and certain He is in control, you do not need to be a slave to pressure and unrelenting busyness. You can tend to your responsibilities and trust Him to bless what you have done. You can be secure that He is in control of the outcome. If you believe that, you can breathe. You can rest.

Come To Me

When trust is neglected, weariness piles up. Worry takes over. There is antsy anxiety about whether you did enough or can possibly do it all. Then one day you recognize that you are weary and you are carrying heavy burdens.

Matthew 11:28-30 says, "Then Jesus said, 'Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.'"

So take the invitation seriously. Let your rest in the Lord come from a place of trust and confidence and certainty in His promises. How have you received Jesus’ invitation for rest? Has skepticism kept you at a distance? Have past injuries made you shut down altogether? Do you feel indifferent, or pressured to avoid laziness, or convinced that rest is for others while you must always achieve? Do you wish you could feel refreshed and renewed? Is the thought of catching your breath something you have been longing for for a long time?

What is a step of faith that is a stretch and would strengthen your trust in the Lord? Take it to Him in prayer. Ask for His leading. Then step with Him. Rest for your soul.