To Enter God's Rest

Psalm 95: (NRSV)
O come, let us sing to the Lord;  let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
² Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;  let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!  ³ For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.  ⁴ In his hand are the depths of the earth;  the heights of the mountains are his also.  ⁵ The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed.  ⁶ O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!  ⁷ For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.  O that today you would listen to his voice!
⁸ Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, ⁹ when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.  ¹⁰ For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not regard my ways.”  ¹¹ Therefore in my anger I swore,  “They shall not enter my rest.”

My first job out of college was in a group home just outside of New Bern, NC.  It was a locked facility for juvenile offenders and runaways who had been mandated by the courts to live there.  Not only were the kids under lock down but so were the staff- unable to leave or go outside on our own without another staff person to relieve you. 

Surprisingly, the kids were pretty well behaved, the pay was ok for a first job, the company was good and my co-workers were great. Several of my friends from college struggled for years to find full-time work I should have been grateful. 

And, honestly, there wasn’t a lot to complain about, but around my 1 year anniversary, complaining is just what I did.  It had begun to feel like I was the one in jail.  The more I complained the more miserable I became; nothing would suit me but to look for a “better” job.  I had lost perspective.  I had stopped being grateful.  I could not be satisfied. 

I had hardened my heart, stopped listening to God.  I had lost my patience, so I took the first job I could find which turned out to be 10 times worse than the first.  Even though it had better pay and better hours, and the doors weren’t locked 24/7 but oh My- it was horrible!  I was ill prepared to work with this new group of kids.  I was miserable!  And, looking back almost 20 years ago, I can hear God say… I told you so.   

I struggled in that time to see God present or at work in my life.  I felt like I had jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.  Things had gone from bad to worse.  I felt unqualified to do anything in my field.  I struggled to find a place in God’s rest.  But honestly, I wasn’t really looking for God’s rest. 

This wasn’t because God was keeping me out but because I chose to stay out. I was stubborn and felt I could create peace for myself.   Except, I couldn’t because it is a place that doesn’t exist without God.  It is a place you find as you surrender your life to God not one we make for ourselves. 

The Psalmist speaks for God at the end of Psalm 95 saying that God loathed the Israelite people for their lack of faith and trust in God’s provision.  That in his anger he prevented them from entering his rest.  I understand that feeling but in my experience God’s rest is there.   I, and probably many others am just refusing to enter it. 

This place of God’s rest requires us to enter through gates of trust.  A trust that is often difficult to live into because it requires a sacrifice, not necessarily of money or anything tangible, because that would be easy, but a sacrifice of submission. 

Submission to a truth that may not be clear.  Submission to a plan with an outcome that cannot be controlled.  A sacrifice of control, a sacrifice of not having it my way.  But mainly the sacrifice of the selfish desire of wanting more, better and different. 

In this second job, I gave up.  I cried myself to sleep so many nights that I just couldn’t take it anymore.  My only option was to give up.  Give up control and learn to trust and accept the peace that I couldn’t create but that God was offering.  And, God being God, I was rescued. 

Psalm 95 is a psalm of Praise, it is a reminder to us that God is indeed God of all creation.  A God who made us, provides for us, saves us with love, compassion and understanding, even when we rebel, even when we choose to go our own way, even when we complain to God and about God.  Even when we just can’t be satisfied with the gifts we’ve been given.  God is still there, still providing, and still keeping God’s promises. 

God reminds the people of their waywardness in Meribah and Massah, not to show off what happens when God gets angry or threatening to withhold God’s love if they stray but as a reminder that God does provide, that God can be trusted, now and in the times to come. 

God is reminding them that it was God who saved them from slavery in Egypt, God who heard their complaining and lack of trust in God’s provision and loved them anyway, providing them with fresh water in the desert. 

Remembering the past has a way of helping us to look forward with hope and optimism.  It’s not that life isn’t hard at times.  It isn’t that we are supposed to put on a happy face with blind, Pollyannaish optimism.  No, because there are times, when God calls us to intentionally live in difficult times- resisting evil and injustice.    

Hope, true optimism, even in the face of challenge and difficult times comes as we look back at all the ways God has provided to get us where we are today.  We can sit around and complain about how horrible it is: it’s too hot, it’s too cold, it’s too wet, it’s too dry, or we can look back and see all the reasons we have to give thanks, even when we are living in a time or place that feels like wilderness. 

When we look around us we can see the beauty of God’s creation, the snow tipped peaks and the daffodils blooming and trust that God knows what God is doing and created the world as it should be.   We can watch as the seasons change and trust that winter will lead to spring, just as it always does. 

We can look at our lives, our past and see the mistakes we have made, the decisions we chose to exclude God from and the consequences of those choices and recognize that even then God was there.  We can see the times when the sound of our complaining drowned out the sound of God’s voice trying to shepherd us through a difficult time.  We can remember the times when in fear we ran from God instead of trusting the guidance of the One who holds all things in his hands. 

And, in this remembering we can look forward trusting that just as God has provided for our past; God will continue to provide for our future.  We can move forward, following in the footsteps of Christ, desiring not our own will, but the will of the Father and as we move forward in hope we trust that the Rock of our Salvation is always present, always offering us a place in God’s rest if we are only willing to enter through the gates of trust, peace, hope and love. 

For this we have reason to give thanks and shout songs of Praise to our Lord.  For this we bow down, worship at the feet of the One who loves us even in our sinfulness, offers us a peace and rest that we cannot create on our own and offers us healing and wholeness amongst the brokenness of our world.  This is the reason we have hope, not only in times of plenty but in times of want too. 

Praise be to God!