Rest and Trust

God never ceases to amaze me, filling me with wonder and awe every time I interact with Him. From surprising me with His love when I expect His wrath, to answering the questions I yell at Him using the words of a church marquis, He always keeps me on my toes.

Recently, I was flipping through my Bible, not sure what I wanted to read, when I thought, ” I need a scripture about rest.” I constantly find myself needing to return to the place we are all called, the place of rest that God has set aside for each of us to reside. Generally, I will stay in that place for the equivalent of five minutes, or so it seems, before I’m right back to thinking about all that needs to be done, what I did wrong today, or why that person didn’t text me today. All of the silly, yet deadly thorns that creep up to choke out the seed of God’s Word in our lives.

This was one of those times. I had once again forgotten to let myself rest. But, my spirit man was craving that quiet, restful time, and I thought, “I need a scripture about rest.”

Just as I thought those words, I looked down at the page I had just stopped on, and wouldn’t you guess, I had stopped on Psalm 91:1. In Sunday School, we called this the 911 verse, when we need to remember where we are safe in a scary world. Today, it was the Holy Spirit’s answer to my request.

I love God’s great sense of humor.

I read the scripture and laughed out loud. Of course He answered me, He is always faithful to do so. But, once again, He had filled me with wonder and awe with His promptness and clarity.

I went on to read verse 2, which says, “This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; He is my God, and I trust Him.”

That’s when He whispered to my heart, “There is rest in trust.”

I pondered this for a moment. There is rest in trust. Suddenly it all made sense. It was as if a wave crashed into the sands of my mind, dumping revelation.

This is why I struggle to rest: I struggle with trust.

I laugh and joke with one of my friends all the time about this very issue. He will often sneak up and scare me in some way, causing me to jump and scream, perhaps punching him in the process. He will then try to hug me or give me some other gesture of affection, to which I turn away from or reluctantly accept with great caution. He laughs, telling me I need to work on my trust issues and I retaliate with the accusation that if he didn’t scare me so much, I would not have them. It is a fun banter between friends. However, there is truth hidden within.

Once I feel I cannot trust you, it is unlikely I will open myself up to you again. Within this struggle of trusting people, there lies the more awful truth: I don’t always trust God.

My Heavenly Father, who has always been faithful and promised to always be with me, fights for my trust. Even as I type those words, it breaks my heart.

However, He is breaking through, cutting through the hard parts of my heart, removing them, and replacing them with flesh. I will do my best, as the writer of Hebrews encourages us, to enter that rest. I will be the willing participant of the process that leads to trust and deep places of rest because, when I trust the Father is my safety, I can rest in the knowledge that I am safe and I don’t worry about where I might hide. When I trust He is my refuge, I can rest in the fact I don’t have to find refuge in money or people or even myself.

He can be trusted to protect me, defend me, provide for me, and be my everything. I can rest because He is my best friend and I am never alone. When God calls me to rest, He calls me to trust.

There is rest in trust.