Friends of Joy: Rest for Our Souls

Susan was a missionary in Romania, very gifted and intelligent, a part of the international team working with university students. As coordinator for Eastern Europe, I was supervising this team and visiting them regularly. During one visit our team leader asked me to talk with Susan because she was not doing well. She was driving herself very hard—working constantly, not getting enough sleep—and her health was deteriorating. We were concerned that we might have to send Susan home to restore her health. So I talked with her. I said, “Susan, we are concerned about your health and overwork. You have said that you believe that God has called you to Romania for life, but we may have to send you home. You are going to need to learn what it means to rest in Jesus, really rest.” I shared the passage in Matthew 11:28–30, where Jesus invites us to come to him and find rest for our souls. She responded, “You’re right. I am going to get up forty-five minutes earlier for the next three months to study everything the Bible has to say about rest.” I just smiled. Finally, she said, “That’s probably not what you had in mind, is it?” “No, it isn’t,” I said. But Susan did learn to rest in Jesus. Her health improved, and I am happy to report that she is still serving the Lord joyfully in Romania.

Can we learn the art of finding restfulness even in our work? If we can do this, we will find joy abounding. Jesus is not a harsh taskmaster. He is gentle and lowly of heart. Yes, he invites us to come under his yoke, but his yoke is easy, and his burden is light, and we will find rest for our souls. Isn’t that what we long for, deep down inside? Not just rest for our bodies, but rest for our souls? We don’t need to keep striving and proving ourselves. We don’t need to try to make ourselves look good. Trying to prove ourselves is the hardest work we will ever do, and the most unsatisfying. And it is never done. Tim Keller says, “There is a work beneath our work that we really need rest from. It is the work of self-justification.”

For many of us, not just our work, but our whole life is characterized by restlessness. We get caught up in striving, competing, improving our status and our standing. This could be in our job, in our marriage, with our friends, in the community. We are rebels at heart, even those of us who have tasted that rest. We run, we hide, we worry, we try harder, we chase, we clutch after those elusive things that can never give rest to our souls.  We chase after success, a secure income, the good life. We frantically fill our lives with activity and things and noise.

Augustine’s famous prayer is so appropriate for us:

Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you (Confessions 1.1.1).

This is a rest you can live with, really live. It is available to us every day, and any time during the day.

When I am poring over the household finances, when I am perplexed by a decision I must make, when I am frustrated over a project at work, when I am discouraged by a disrespectful attitude from my children or a harsh comment from a colleague at work, I need to stop and ask—whose yoke am I wearing now?  Most likely it’s one I have made for myself, and it is no fun. There is no joy there.

Meanwhile, Jesus is standing with open arms and saying, Come to me, I will give you rest for your souls, such as the world neither knows nor comprehends. I made you; I know what you need. Jesus is on our side; he is for us. He beckons us to come under the protection of his yoke, his forgiveness, and his leadership. We can work beneath his smile. When we live in this way, our labor is not toilsome, but light and a pleasure. There is freedom here too, freedom from the enslavement of proving ourselves. Another beautiful benefit of living this way is that even the most mundane tasks in our day can become very meaningful, even sacred. I entreat you to try this new and radical outlook. You will find flourishing joy.