In the Moment of Despair

Rest: it means to cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover strength.  I do not know about you, but I know that I do not “rest” well.  I sleep great at night, but that is probably because I go so long with out resting all the time.  I am eager to find out the entirety of what the Bible has to say about rest, its importance for us, and how to do it.

The next mention of rest comes from Psalm 116, [I will be using the Message paraphrase]:

I love God because he listened to me,
listened as I begged for mercy.
He listened so intently
as I laid out my case before him.
Death stared me in the face, hell was hard on my heels.
Up against it, I didn’t know which way to turn;
then I called out to God for help:
“Please, God!” I cried out. “Save my life!”

God is gracious – it is he who makes things right,
our most compassionate God.
God takes the side of the helpless;
when I was at the end of my rope, he saved me.

I said to myself, “Relax and rest.
God has showered you with blessings.
Soul, you’ve been rescued from death;
Eye, you’ve been rescued from tears;
and you, Foot, were kept from stumbling.”
I’m striding in the presence of God,
alive in the land of the living! [v. 1-9]

Rest is the antagonist of torture.  Nearly all of the mentions of rest from the Bible so far have related to the opposite of rest.  The psalmist here, as many of the psalms do, goes on and on about his suffering and affliction.

What amazes me is the author’s ability to recognize in a moment the compassion and goodness of God.  Nothing physically has changed; there is no mention of the removal of his tormentors or dismissal of his pain.  But the moment that he calls out to God his mind makes a change – he recognizes the glory of God’s goodness throughout his life.

The other day I was putting together a closet organizer for our new baby room.  I am not a handy-man kind of guy and the organizer and the walls and the screws were all screwing with my brain.  Three quarters of the way through it I was not sure that I was going to be able to finish [though, I must admit that I had no idea I was that far along in the project – to me it appeared to be just as close to the beginning as when I had opened the box].  Finally, lunch came around, and I got a break from the actual project, though my mind continued to torment me.  But when I finished lunch and walked back into that room, I thought to myself, “I am going to conquer this thing.”  15 minutes later I was finished and it worked out perfectly.

I was still not a handy-man kind of guy – the only thing that changed was my attitude and thought process about it.  This is what we see from the psalmist – his situation was the same, but he recognized in his heart that God is good and compassionate – that the Lord protects the simple-hearted.

Perhaps that is our problem – we make simple things big when we try to handle them on our own.  But the moment that we bring God and his magnificence into a situation, everything changes.

When was the last time you let the God of the Universe into a situation you faced?

If we deny our pride, our sorry state of being will quickly transform into a steady state of joy.  Joy is not the feeling of happiness, but the recognition of God’s grace in the midst of chaos.