Rest is important. Not just resting from a long week of work, or a day filled with brain activity that has made your head hurt, but also spiritual rest. Resting ourselves spiritually is crucial in times where our minds cannot be quieted & there is a little reminder of this found in Mark chapter 6. Jesus INVITES us to go off by ourselves for rest. But, by ourselves WITH Him! This is key. Yes we need alone time, but specifically alone time away from the world and time to be with Jesus. We find rest through God and God alone.
This past week, I also found the verse Zephaniah 3:17, which fits so nicely in this message about rest. It reads:
“The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you by His love, He will exult over you with loud singing.”
The words I want you to focus in on today are “He will quiet you by His love”. He RESTS our mind when we choose to go find that place of rest with Him. He quiets the noise of the world, the leftovers from the weekend, the self-hatred in our heads. He CALMS our hearts and CLEANS out our head. We can recover from any bad day when we go to rest with Jesus.
If you read on in Mark 6, Jesus and His apostles are specifically going some place to rest and eat to get away from the people who are constantly coming and going. They didn’t have time to eat where they were, so they found a place to do so.
I find this very fitting because often in the world, there are people constantly coming and going. There are things constantly coming up and getting in the way of finding time to just stop and eat. We let the busy get in the way of the rest- specifically resting in Jesus. We don’t stop to eat. Jesus is to be our DAILY bread, but we tend to starve. We have to find a place to indulge in this daily bread, regardless of the world coming and going.
Continuing on, they still hadn’t had a moment to eat, but Jesus asked them to feed the people that had been following them. And the questions, with what? How are we to feed these people? Of course, many of you know how this story ends. They found five loaves of bread and two fish that Jesus turned into enough food for 5,000.
Think about it this way. When you are spiritually rested, and well fed, Jesus will use you to feed others. He will turn whatever you have into 5,000 of something to FEED others.
We cannot starve in this world, because then we cannot feed those around us who need that nourishment.
Let’s do a few things today... Let’s be sure to REST. Go find a place to be with Jesus so that your heart can be spiritually fed. Don’t wait to rest until Friday- begin your week with it! Then, ask God who else needs to be fed. Let’s go into our Monday FEEDING those around us with the wisdom & grace given to us through Jesus.
Find rest & nourishment today!
MKG
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