Are You Looking for the Way to a Destination Called Peaceful Rest?

For over thirty years, this country hill in Maine has been home to our family. One by one, we’ve added to the numbers until now we're 18 Morins in all, but it all started with two of us. The longer we live here, the more obvious it becomes that “home” is really more about the people than the place.

In his dealings with Israel, God bends over backward to urge them (and now us!) to make our home in him, to find our rest in him. Hebrews 4 opens with the invitation and a warning:

"Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it." (Hebrews 4:1 ESV)

The writer of Hebrews speaks of “entering” God’s rest as a destination, but it’s clear that Peaceful Rest is found in a Person.

Therefore… Choose Rest Over Discontentment

For present-day believers, rest is a discipline, but it is also a gift from God. Rest isn’t one more thing to clutter up your to-do list! It’s not just another kind of work that needs a check mark, but rather a trust-based admission that the first work and the most important work has already been done.

Israel’s example is a warning to us:

They had forfeited rest in the Land of Promise. They longed for a different place, even a return to Egypt! Trusting an unseen God did not feel safe.

What self-salvation strategies do you implement rather than resting in God’s provision for your soul? God’s invitation to rest in him, to make him your home shouts, “Stop spinning plates! End your ceaseless striving! Believe that God is enough!”

Therefore… Choose Rest Over Worry

God did not promise Israel a trouble-free existence in the Promised Land. They would have to conquer it yard by yard, and he has not promised present-day believers a life without hassles. He has, however, promised to give us peace in the midst of the hassles.

Our response to trouble is all about the location of our souls. Have you located your soul in relation to God?

As John Koesslser has said in The Radical Pursuit of Rest, “Like Israel, we experience divine rest starting with relocation… [But] instead of relocating to a different point on the map, we are brought into union with Christ.”

If you have made your home in Christ, if you are trusting in him and his sovereign goodness, you will find rest in your journey. Detours and obstacles may abound, but rest can be your traveling companion–and your destination.

The promise still stands. You are invited to enter his rest, the only true destination that offers peace, no matter what.