Rest

Always busy, always on the go. Maybe you recognize it. Your schedule is overflowing. It feels like life is living you. Relationship, family, work, relatives, and friends: everything demands—and deserves—attention. Before you know it, another week has passed, and if you’re honest, you often feel rushed and restless. You long for time for yourself. A moment to think about nothing at all: rest.  

But what are you really living for? Just for the here and now? Working hard and then taking a break? Enjoying your well-earned retirement? Having a good time with family and friends, leaving the world a better place, being meaningful to others? These are wonderful goals, but then what? After that, nothing?  

In the Bible, the Word of God, it says:  
‘There remains, then, a rest for the people of God. (…) Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest.’ (Hebrews 4:9)  

The rest spoken of in this Bible verse is true rest. This rest leads to eternal rest. ‘Rest in peace’ is often said when someone dies. A beautiful wish. But you can only rest in peace if you have received peace with God during your life. On our own, we do not have that peace with God; in fact, we want nothing to do with Him. Have you ever become restless about that? He is your Creator, and when you die, you will have to give account for everything you have thought, said, and done. 

The well-known church father Augustine said: ‘Restless is the heart until it finds rest in You.’ He means: if we know that restlessness because of our life without God, we no longer live just for the here and now, but we start to seek rest and peace with God. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to teach this and to give people that true rest. Is your life marked by the restless, dead-end road without Him? Jesus says: ‘Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’  

Are you also searching for that true rest? You won’t find it by chasing your overflowing schedule, but only through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

Maybe you wonder how you can get that faith. You can read about it in God’s Word, the Bible. Request a free copy.