There is a Rest for You

thoughts on the reality of rest and my subconcious aversion to it

🎧 AUDIO for REST: If your mind resists rest the moment it appears, don’t analyze it, just listen to this.

Rest is something I subconsciously avoid. Consciously, I want it terribly, but when it comes along, I want to jump up and run away, waving my arms like a wasp is threatening to sting on me.

So when I read The Master’s Indwelling by Andrew Murray, it was like the wasp lost its sting. I ravenously (no, it’s not lost on me that it wasn’t restfully) started copying down his words. And these were the ones for me. I thought maybe they might be for you, too.

This was my favorite! Never really knew it was true.

I believe, heartily, there is rest in the life of faith.

I believe that there is a rest into which Jesus, our Joshua, can bring a trusting soul. I believe it is for me. I know God keeps me every hour in his mighty power.

I believe there is a possibility of such a change out of the life of spiritual death, and darkness, and sadness, and complaining, that I have often lived, . . .

It’s like he sees into my soul and names it all.

It’s nice to know I’m not the only one.

Not even when we’ve spent decades not knowing what we are learning now.

Amen! Not just the unanxious.

I can repeat these words, but the part of my brain that insists on protecting me has yet to learn it. And I know now it only learns through repetition. So this is my repetition. To read these words regularly, to read them when my guilt, my temperature or my heart rate rises, and to show my brain that rest truly is for me.

If you’d like to meditate on this idea, here is the text uninterrupted: (Or listen to the soothing audio at the top of the page.)

There is rest for me.

I believe, heartily, there is rest in the life of faith. I believe this rest is for me. I believe that there is a rest into which Jesus, our Joshua, can bring a trusting soul. I believe it is for me. I know God keeps me every hour in his mighty power.

I believe there is a possibility of such a change out of the life of spiritual death, and darkness, and sadness, and complaining, that I have often lived, into the land of supply of every want; where the grace of Jesus is proved sufficient every hour of every day. I believe in the possibility that there is such a land of rest for me.

Up to this time I have never found His rest. I have not lived that life, and I am guilty; I have dishonored God; I have been like Israel; I have provoked Him to wrath by my unbelief and disobedience. I have not glorified God by a life lived in the land of rest.

Today I begin to look away from myself and towards God. After all, the God who converted me is the same God who is able to bring me into this life every minute of every day.

It is for me.

I do believe, that God does want to give me his rest.

It is for me;

I do believe that God does not disinherit any of His children. What He gives is for every one. I believe that blessed life is waiting for me. It is meant for me. God is waiting to bestow it, and to work it in me. Glory be to His blessed name! My soul says it is for me.

I believe this unimaginable treasure is there even for me, the weakest and most frail of his beings.

It is for me.

I can never, by any effort of my own grasp it, God must give it to me.

Andrew Murray, The Master’s Indwelling