Resting in Jesus
Life under control
I love checklists and schedules—having my life in order. As a homeschooling mother of three boys, I depend on my schedules and try with all my strength to make them a reality. But try as I might, real life happens. Unplanned events, the needs of the children, the needs of others. It is good to plan. It is good to have your life under control. But God has taught me over time, to be flexible and allow room to do as He leads. I love my checklists and schedules but they are now, shall I say, a very loose guideline.
Life turned upside down
It looked like a typical week of personal time with Jesus, homeschooling, cooking and cleaning, music lessons and grocery shopping, working in the garden, leading out in women’s Bible study, preparation for Sabbath visitors, and preparation for Sabbath school and special music among other things in life. Everything had its place in the schedule with no time for much else, or so I thought.
Our family takes foster children into our home on the weekends for respite upon request. Three weeks ago, I got a request to take a 12-year old boy. Though exhausted from the week prior, I said that we would. It seemed like a typical respite. Something that we were used to. Then we found out that this child’s parent gave him up to the foster system because he was out of her control and was also recently released from juvenile detention because he ran away from his foster home. He had major aggression issues and suidical thoughts.
We had agreed that we would not take any permanent placements to prioritize the needs of our children. We had said that we would only take a permanent placement if God made it clear for us to do so. We didn’t feel prepared to make that kind of commitment but at that time we could not send this child back into the foster system because nobody else wanted him. We had a decision to make and went to God in prayer. We felt assurance and peace as we placed this child before God and agreed to do as He willed. If the foster system could find another home that would take him, we would let him go. If not, we would keep him.
The journey so far has been weary and tough. There have been several outlashes and incidents of aggression but God is teaching him to control his anger. Worship times have been hard but therapeutic for him and we seem to have gained his trust. He says that the demons don’t bother him as much now, and he is determined to give his impulses and life to Jesus.
Our lives have been turned upside down to say the least, or did it instead get more firmly established?
I felt ill-equipped to talk him through his mental state. I felt concerned for the safety of my kids. But through it all, I feel God teaching me and my family to rise up to the occasion by placing our complete trust in Him. I can say that I was good at keeping our lives in order and, with each challenge, was able to meet them head-on, determined to accomplish each task. And though I trusted in God before, relying on Him for strength and wisdom, I sense more of my need of Him now, gladly leaning wholly upon Him. There is no need of an improving of myself. An “I can do it” attitude. Oh, no. There is nothing sufficient in me and I am glad to rest in Jesus.
Lessons from the limpets and butterflies
Butterflies raised in captivity are not as strong as their wild counterparts because those in captivity were not exposed to the variances of weather such as storms and wind gusts, to strengthen their grip. A measure of their survival was grip strength—how firmly they were able to hold on during a storm. Limpets consist of one of the strongest biological materials in the world. Its teeth are able to hold on to a rock with such strength that it can withstand an immense amount of pressure before breaking. It becomes as strong as the material that it is holding on to. Essentially, nothing can release the limpet’s hold on the rock without killing it. As the grip of the butterfly and the limpet is crucial for their survival, so is our grip on the Rock of Salvation.
“He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory; the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God” (Psalm 62:6,7).
How strong is your hold on God?
Holding fast
We are told in Hebrews 4:14 to “hold fast our profession” of Jesus. What is our profession? To follow Christ wherever He may lead. To trust in Him. To rest in Him. “Christians must hold the beginning of their confidence firm unto the end. It is not enough to profess the faith. There must be a patient endurance of all trials and a brave resistance to all temptations. Faith can be maintained only by bringing the Christian religion to the test of practice, thus demonstrating its transforming power and the faithfulness of its promises” (MS 42, 1901). But how do we actually do that?
In Joshua chapter 23, Joshua gives his last words to the Israelites in sharing with them how to hold fast to Jesus. He says “…you have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations because of you, for the Lord your God is He that has fought for you… Therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, lest you turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left… but you shall hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day...” 1) Remember God’s faithfulness and how He has led you in the past. 2) God is fighting for you so be courageous. 3) Keep and do the law of God. It will direct your life. 4) Hold fast to Jesus as you have.
How have you been holding on to Jesus? As easy it may be to focus on the trial, our family is striving to focus on God and His strength. We are choosing to hold fast as a limpet to the Rock, that His strength may be ours. We are choosing to hold on, even unto death. As the waves upon the shore toss the inhabitants of the sea, so can our lives be turned upside down at the slightest trial or testing. But if we fasten ourselves to the Rock, we can be firmly established and at rest.
Sabbath rest
We need rest. What a thoughtful God to have set aside a day of rest for us at the end of a busy week. Our bodies need that physical rest. Sabbath is a day of rest from all of our work. But could it mean resting from more than just physical work? “All who regard the Sabbath as a sign between them and God, showing that He is the God who sanctifies them, will represent the principles of His government. They will bring into daily practice the laws of His kingdom. Daily it will be their prayer that the sanctification of the Sabbath may rest upon them" (CCh 262). The Sabbath is a sign of sanctification and obedience. It shows whose we are — creation of the Creator — bearing its seal on us as His people. Within the Sabbath is a sanctifying truth. A spiritual rest attends it. A rest (katapausis) which literally means “calming of the winds’ and “heavenly blessedness in which God dwells”.
I am understanding this rest more as my family and I are learning to trust in His ways.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:8-11).
What word is God speaking to you today? Learn to rest in Him. As you know, there is an impending storm fast approaching us and God is calling us to find rest in Him. In Hebrews 4, we are told to “hold fast our profession” and “labour therefore to enter into that rest”. I am understanding this rest more as I labour, cathartically crying out to God in utter helplessness and frailness of heart, and then experience His overwhelming peace that covers me. I am understanding this rest more as I sense the “heavenly blessedness in which God dwells” and the “calming of the winds” around me.
Sabbath is much more than just a physical rest. It is a sign of sanctification and obedience through the joys and trials of life, to learn to rest in Him in meekness and lowliness of heart. No wonder it will be a testing truth in these last days. A truth that will demonstrate whose we are. “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).
Jane Lee is a member of the Pikeville Seventh-day Church, in the beautiful Sequatchie valley of Tennessee. She is married to her dental school sweetheart, Fred, and homeschools her three precious boys. She loves to read, garden, help people, study God’s word, and spend time with her family in nature.