Need Some Rest?

My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. – Ps 62:1

It would be easy to look at the updates from Africa and see only adventure.  Sometimes we report only the great things.  Make no mistake: It is adventuresome.  It is great.  It is worth the work.  But it is also hard.  On trips like this your entire being is flung into a new experience.  Like bring thrown underwater, sometimes it is hard to know which way is up.  Your body is in another time zone.  You are seeing things you rarely see.  The simple act of eating a meal is complicated.  Your body adjusts to a different diet, and you wrestle with homesickness.  At times your soul battles for some equilibrium, for some sort of rest.

In truth, we all wrestle with a similar thing.  We want our soul to be at rest.  We find ourselves searching for things that would quiet our soul.  If I just had a little more money my soul would be restful.  If the relationship would work out, I would be at peace.  If I could just accomplish this, or have that, then I could rest easy.  Problem is, when you have this or get that, your soul finds rest only for a season.  Why is that?  Because our soul is not meant to find rest in anything except our creator.

When everything around us screams “Find rest here,” remember that our soul finds rest only in the one that created us.  The best that anything else offers is only temporary.

So, odd as it may be, let me pray from you (from Africa none-the-less):

God, thanks for my friends who are reading this.  We acknowledge that we chase many things.  We want rest.  We want to be at peace.  We have looked many places.  We have had experiences that have left us without rest.  We have chased at an intense level, only to find that the rest and peace faded.  Forgive us.  We acknowledge that our soul can only find rest in you.  You are our creator.  You are our comfort.  You are the one who died.  You are the one who rose again.  You are the one at the right hand of the Father.  You are the one saving us.   You are the one who knows us better than ourselves.  Today we find our rest in you.  We will stop ourselves today when our soul strays and tries to find rest in something else.  Our soul will finds rest in your alone.  Please grant us significant rest and real peace today.

Amen. 

Note: Today we travel north to Lira, Uganda for our second conference.  It is a glamorous 7 hour non air-conditioned bus ride on rough roads.  That’s OK.  Our rest is not in the quality of transport or the smoothness of the road.  Thanks for the prayers.  We will keep you updated as much as can.  Real-time updates come through facebook and twitter.

photo by VinothChander