Seeking Rest

Rest Area Ahead.
Next Rest Area 67 miles.

The blue signs along the side of the highway gave warning: Miss this rest stop and it'll be an hour to the next one.

I started thinking about the places of rest in our lives. The moments when everything is okay, everyone is happy and healthy all at the same time, job stress is low but the checking account is high... the times when we know God is walking beside us and for once we don't have a laundry list of prayer requests, we aren't distracted by our own plots and plans, and we can just focus on being and praising and thanksgiving... those times. Wouldn't it be nice to have signs to tell us when the next rest stop will be?

Spiritual Rest 2 Miles Ahead.
Next spiritual rest 6 or 7 days from now.

Then I realized, maybe we do get signs... we just don't always choose follow them.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
~ Matthew 11:28

Turning in at a highway rest stop is a matter of choice. As I drove along I chose to drive past several rest areas without pulling in to stretch my legs and take a break. That was my choice.

Rest Area Next Right

It is also my choice to decide to obey God's word or to disobey. Should I be surprised that choosing disobedience means no rest, or choosing to obey means finding rest in the Lord? God has provided places and days of rest for us in our lives. Are we choosing to drive right past those spiritual rest areas?

With whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?
~Hebrews 3:17-18

Rest Area Next Right Choice

On God rests my salvation and my glory;
my mighty rock, my refuge is God.
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.
~Psalm 62:7-8

Tomorrow is the Christian Sabbath, Sunday, a day of rest. Tomorrow will we choose to seek God's rest? Will we turn in at that rest stop in our week? Will we take the time to focus not on our own plots and plans but on our Lord?

So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest...
~Hebrews 4:9-11