Beginning With Rest

Beginning the year with rest.

As illogical as it sounds in our hurried culture, God began all creation with rest and wants us to begin with rest too.

Creation is still infused with rest. That longing that we find at a sunset. That wonder at a spiderweb. That peace in a breeze. He is present. He is speaking. 

But do we hear it? 

Are we aware of the rest He is giving to us? 

The rest that’s all around us.

“The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world” Psalms‬ ‭19‬:‭1‬-‭4‬ ‭NLT.‬‬

When creation was completed, God rested on the seventh day. Which was the first day for Adam and Eve. He called this rest-day holy, set apart, the Sabbath. 

For ancient Israel this seventh day of creation wasn’t God withdrawing from His activity as we often think of with rest, but rather an active engagement, stepping into the task of creating, sustaining, providing, orchestrating, filling the created world with His presence. All from an ineffable state of rest. A place of abundance. A space of contentment.

Watch last Sunday’s Sermon,  “The Beginning of ‘The Resting Place” from The Resting Place Series  

In the Ancient Near East, it was  common in the completion of a creation narrative that the active deity would “rest on” the temple that they had been building. “Rest on” in this sense, isn’t a pause but a manifestation, a weight, what Israel calls “God’s glory.”

Just like we rest a plate on a table. Or rest our minds on a truth. God’s presence rests on creation, and we’re specifically designed to host this type of rest in our minds, bodies, and spirits.

Many times we chase after the idea of rest, various practices that promise rest, various guides lead us towards rest… and all of this is good.

But this is misleading if we don’t first rest in the fact that we are, and all the created order is, made to be a dwelling place for God Himself. 

And that it is God who prepares the space, creates the order, provides the resources, structures, the laws and dynamics, in us and in all creation.

He is still ruling his creation through rest. It’s less about us trying to find new routes for rest and more about realizing that we are loved by God, and He loved us so much that He designed us to be His resting place.

“Our heart is restless until it has found its rest in Thee.” St. Augustine

Real rest only comes in His presence.

I’m looking forward to digging deeper into being “the resting place “of God this Sunday as we as we study the tabernacle and God drawing near to us, even in the middle of wilderness, sin, and complaints.

See you Sunday!

Pastor Dave

PS. Check out this video from Sunday on how the seven days of creation in Genesis 1 set up the whole creation to be a place of rest, of abundance, and of encounter with God:

Bible Project - How Genesis 1 Sets Up What the Whole Bible is About