I've known and liked this song for a while, but we sang it at CRU on Thursday night and it evoked emotion in me. The chorus talks about being restless until we rest in the Lord. I find that to be so true in my life. So often I want to go and do and figure it out all on my own, and I exhaust myself trying to do that. Maybe you can relate. The Bible tells us that we can't rest without God. As I listened to this song and tried to decide if it was blog-worthy, I was immediately reminded of a couple of verses. The first one is Psalm 62:5-8:
"Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God, he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge."
The first time I ever remember reading that is when I was learning to be a rappelling instructor. As my camp friends know, I was a complete mess the week I was violently shoved outside of my comfort zone by trying to learn all of that. I couldn't sleep because I was thinking of how scared I was and how I was never going to be able to do that for the entire summer and how I hated it and how I could get out of it and thinking of how my partner, Bryne and my boss, Steve probably just thought I was a complete sorority girl sissy. (I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I'm not, buuuut...haha) I couldn't rest. I couldn't do it. That is not how I'm wired and I was terrified. Then my friend Kylee, who had done my job the year before, pointed me to Psalm 62. I am still incredibly grateful for her wisdom that day. She probably doesn't know that every single time I was on top of that tower, looking up the gap, about to rappel with 10 junior high and high school kids watching me, I was scared to death. Every time. It got easier as the summer went on, but I was legitimately scared at least 4 times a day. What she also doesn't know, is that every time I looked up the gap and dreaded what I was about to do, I recited part of Psalm 62. I would say to myself, "Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him." and I would take a deep breath and go. It didn't make it more enjoyable, but it made it manageable. I quickly learned that if I ask the Lord to quiet my soul and I look to him for my rest, that He will respond. And yet even after learning that in a big way, in my every day life I find myself looking to earthly things to give me rest. I'm looking to my own wisdom and my own ideas to find rest, and I can't do it. I am restless.
So I guess that is why this song touches me so deep. I am restless every single day. And every single day, the Lord desires for me to rest in Him. Some days I actually figure that out. I don't want to be restless. I want to wake up and go through my day and go to sleep resting in Him alone. He is so faithful to pursue me even when I am running.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." -Matthew 11:28
-m.
