Theology of Rest

It is very difficult to find anyone today speaking of a theology of rest. Often we will find book after book devoted to being less busy or finding time to step away from constant work.

The problem is so ingrained that we often cannot put the solution in a positive light, i.e. rest or relaxation. We are often so far off that we can only think in terms of being less busy or making time.

The bible devotes an entire day in the life of a Christian for rest. Living out Sabbath means trusting that in six days we can do more with God than in seven days without God.

Among the few people today who keep Sabbath, it often becomes a very burden-full thing. It seems to equate in some circles to not enjoying oneself as if Sabbath is a rigorous denial of self.

Sabbath is made for man and not man for Sabbath. The concept of Sabbath needs always to have human joy at the center of it. Joy in God is of course the main part of man's joy, but God made all creation good.

It is often you will find preachers in the current day preaching to a person or two on a Superbowl Sunday. No matter how insensible opening the church is or how sensible moving the service a few hours earlier, they view it is a spiritual discipline to not buckle to culture.

In a sense the motive makes sense but the glorification of self denial is all to prevalent in the current day. Self denial in and of it self has no value. What has the self denial of the pastor produced? Often it seems to be something of a pride that they succeeded while 98% of the church failed.

You see too often self denial is pursued even when it produces no fruit. Sometimes self denial hurts rather than helps. Christianity is about joy and how joy may be truly found.

Rest is an important part of God's plan. God has come to draw people to himself and teach us how to be truly happy. He wishes for us to enjoy the world without being worldly.

Jesus often withdrew into the wilderness to pray and rest. If Jesus saw the need to rest (and he did) than we should try to see the need as well.

Responsibility

Often life does not go as people wish. It is easy to be faithful in our work or continue to make smart decisions when things are going our way.

Often things do not go our way in life however. We often need to continue to make the responsible decisions even when we we are not entirely happy.

Humility in practice often means continuing to be faithful in the work in our life if we feel gripped or slighted. At times faithfulness to God means setting aside our feelings.

Often doing the right thing is not the easy thing. Much of the difficulty is that often doing the right thing cuts at our pride. Sometimes righteousness requires setting aside our feelings.

Of course we can and should seek joy in life. God wishes for us to be happy. His intent is for our good.

At times life is difficult and perseverance is of course necessary. Responsibility is often setting aside how we feel and doing the right thing, whatever it is in certain situations.

Understanding What We Believe

Post by
Michelle Dowell, Co-Contributor

To truly be able to lead and live well, it's important to truly understand what you believe. A lot of people say that they are a Christian and assume that means they know what they believe, but may not live or think much differently than the culture around them that is not Christian these days. We live in a postmodern culture, where this is acceptable to the culture: it's viewed as good to not strongly believe anything because postmodernism is more okay and fine with everyone's beliefs.

If someone were to ask you why you're a Christian, do you know what you'd say? If they asked you what is different abut your religion compared to other religions, would you be able to answer? Does your religion cause you to live differently than people of different religions or those who don't have a religion?

A major difference in the Christian religion compared to others is that it's not our works that get us to Heaven. It's Christ's perfection and faith that does.

Some people think that feeling/emotion is most important in religion and that thinking hinders religion. For instance, feeling that God is for them in that moment, or they made God happy is what they aim for. They feel like that's all they need. But not working to truly understand their beliefs of God and what God wants--that may cause them to feel things to be true that are not true: A person may feel happy and in some sense that makes them feel like God is happy with what they're doing--but really they could be happy in that moment because the sun is shining that day or they had a great meal the day before.

The way for them to truly know that God is happy or accepting of a choice is to truly understand the Bible as much as they can. To think about it. Some people may live in the thought that they can never please God because they feel crappy and nothing seems to go as right as they envisioned it, but really understanding God's true acceptance of us would help them feel like God is still okay with them. Our feelings don't always match the reality of the situation. We are fallen and there are so many factors to what makes us feel certain ways (the weather, how much we eat or sleep, what's going on in the world and in our lives).

The Messiness of Life

Post by
Michelle Dowell
Co-Contributor

A theology that is missing an acknowledgement of the messiness of life is deficient. I heard a pastor say once "God is a God of order." That is absolutely true, but I am more encouraged to know that God is a God who, in his mercy, allows people in a messy world with a messy nature to still take part in serving him.

This fallen condition of the world and humans is a hard reality, but the fact that we are allowed to participate in God's work of loving and helping people and honoring him in the midst of it all--that is what is encouraging. It's broken, but we're called to work with that brokenness, to help when we can to put pieces back together if it's possible. Let's focus on that, but also not forget the state of everything being tainted by the Fall. It's discouraging to always try to grasp for the impossible of perfection in this life.

It's sad to see so many Christians try so hard to always force a smile. It's as if they feel if they don't appear that everything is perfect and in order in their life and if they aren't happy in that moment, something is missing. They may feel that their smile doesn't look forced, but often it's easy to see if a person is forcing it if a person is really wanting to know.

I'm not saying that Christians should grumpily walk around. Christians should show more genuine emotions. They should trust that it's okay to not feel happy every moment of the day, and to allow others to see that. It may mean not having much of an expression but it's honest and frees others of the pressure to pretend to be what one is not.


It's not one or the other: Not happy or sad all the time. But a variety of emotions at different times. This is life. It is an adventure, a calling, a journey.

Man's Greatness

Our culture is often obsessed with great people. What makes people great?

There are many answers. Fame, money, influence. You see it all falls short. The reason is there is no understanding of man's nature.

Sometimes there is an attempt to fall back on philosophy. Man is his own captain or man is who he can be in himself. Sometimes man is seen as great in community.

The great struggle of man is he feels this sense of greatness but it is hard to explain. He also feels empty.

You see man is great because he is a child of God. And he is empty because God is often far from man's thoughts.

You see the closer man is to God the more full he is. As he walks with God he is happy. But there is always something else.

You see man thinks there is something God has not offered and he wanders. Surely this or that will satisfy and not God.

It is always like this in life. There are many lost people. And many who have seen the light of Jesus Christ in the place of glory of the cross struggle to see the cross day by day.

You see we often need not learn anything new but to simply remember. We often forget. It is easy to forget and follow the shadows of life.

Life offers many things that promise happiness. Few provide much. The new phone is not much better than the old phone.

The new TV is not much better than the old TV. And even if the improvement is vast these things consume our time. We gain but we lose other things.

You see it is all ephemeral and nothing has permanence except God. In the beginning God. In the end God.

George Muller Quote

"I must have my heart happy in God or I will be of no use to anybody." George Muller