Receiving Help
Where there is unbelief, there is no rest. Unbelief keeps me working in the hope that one day I will accomplish enough to be worthy of rest. But rest is not the result of work, it is the result of faith.
Rest occurs when I trust that all the work is already done even though I wasn’t the one to do it. My external behavior will always reflect my inner posture. Am I struggling? Am I able to rest in the quality of the work done by someone else? How often do I feel the need to follow up behind them to make sure the job was done according to my standard? True rest comes to me when I do not think of myself more highly than I ought!
I am not the only one who can do a job right; and just because it was done differently than I would have done it, does not mean it was done wrong! Arrogance won’t let me experience the rest that could come to me in the form of another person. When I can let someone else do the work for me then I am entering the beginning stages of rest. Peace occurs when I don’t heed the false need to improve upon the work they did.
It is important to receive a gift (or help) for what and how it is. Help is not necessarily what I thought I needed, wanted or even asked for. Like any gift, help is often given at the whim of the giver. To receive the nakedness of the gift that was given means I won’t try to exchange if for something else. Only when a gift is fully received can it be fully revealed and thus appreciated.
God gives the gift of people. Appreciation opens the gift, and its meaning and purpose is then cultivated over time. People are fragile (yet flexible) gifts and God intends careful handling. His are good and perfect gifts to be engaged lovingly and respectfully at all times. As I look with wonderment at the differences between God’s gifts (people), I gain appreciation for His discernment of which gifts most compliment my being.
His gifts aren’t always an obvious pairing. The seeming mismatch may be difficult to appreciate, but the unique perspectives are not without reason. There is much to glean from each other’s point of reference. We need not rush toward the agreement that may come later. I am encouraged to enjoy the differences instead of trying to coerce conformity.
Spiritually speaking, there is no real work left to be done. The only thing left is the rest. There is a strong contrast between rest and work, love and law, desire and obligation. Obligation feels hard, like work. Desire feels easy, like rest. I am meant to live in the ease of being myself and living in restful agreement with who I am. From the place of true desire I can accomplish many things. I may look busy but I live rested.
Rest is the satisfaction that comes at the end of a day well spent (not well earned). To spend a good day is to draw generously from the bounty of eternal days within me. I spend them freely because of my sense of abundance and belonging. Trying to earn a sense of satisfaction holds the limitations of a false sense of self and separation. Self-made good days come few and far between.
A day filled with true rest and peace is drawn from the awareness of inner faith; that place within me that knows that the Father has made all things well within me and that there is nothing in me that is not already making a full return to Him. This is rest and peace; this is the atmosphere of grace that allows me to grow unhindered by the resistance of judgment and criticism. I am finished.
Why does it seem that religion does not foster the same gracious embrace of spiritual seasons as is extended toward natural ones? Every part of my life (spiritual growth, marriage, ministry, finance, social outreach, etc) undergoes the changing of the seasons – winter, spring, summer, and autumn are facts of life on every level. Some years have more drought or pestilence than others – but I cannot make it rain or stop the locusts. I can however, trust God in it all.
