Labour to enter into rest

I don't know what time I finished posting last night, but it was late-ish... then ended up laying awake for a long, long time tossing & turning. When i'd gotten home I'd felt hungry, thought I'd grab some ice cream, but only managed one or two bites before putting the rest back in the container (which you can do if you're the only one eating out of your box of ice cream). Between the ice cream, the thoughts/frustrations from the movie & the unshed tears for a world where communication fails so badly, and ultimately me stewing about my own areas/issues of communication breakdown, my tummy was left a knotted, twisted mess. I felt ill.

So I tossed an turned til at least 3, likely 3:30, thoughts churning, stomach churning, my body rolling over & over hoping that some new position would help my body feel ready to drift off into sleep... Finally I think I started to think about work to try to take my mind off stuff (or at least I think that's how it worked - I woke up hours later with some bad taste in my mouth & these warped dreams about trying to fit in temperature tests that seemed to keep failing)....

Some of the night was praying for God to make sense out of things, to reveal my heart to me. Some of it was prayers for a mercy killing - for some bolt of sleep to pierce my brains from the heavens & help me drift off into dreams....

.... but somewhere before the trying to trick my mind onto other subjects came the thoughts that I have to stop trying to figure out stuff on my own. That I need to leave behind the days of self-reliance & trusting in my own stength/wisdom to get me through life.

... this, if I look at it right, is pretty much the thought that I had in the past that spurred me on to joining up with the urban monastery/community house crowd.....

.... it was some time in december. I was sitting in church & meditating on Hebrews 4. This is a passage that has bothered me for years 'cause I don't get how the whole stuff about the promised land, etc. flows into the thoughts of the word being sharp & powerful & this idea that we have this high priest who knows our weaknesses... Every time I think I have the flow of that passage, something doesn't seem to fit & the connect the dots picture seems to re-arrange itself....

But I was thinking about the idea of 'entering into rest'. The passage speaks of a place of sabbath rest (the place where God rested from his works on the 7th day of creation). The imagery I get from the passage is that God promises to us a place where we leave striving, a place where life is no more about what we try to do, or about having to work hard to accomplish something, or fighting this seemingly futile battle that we always do... There seems to be a promise of rest, a place where you stop working & allow God to work through you...

The metaphor for this place of rest that is used here is the 'promised land' - the land of Canaan as discussed in the book of Joshua. This was the land promised to Israel as their inheritance. it was a land inhabited by many enemies & the place where they crossed over Jordan to enter the land meant an entrance into a long, long stretch of battle after battle.

So where does the rest come in? Well, the point is that the battles they fought were to be fought under God's power. The first battle the Israelite's faced in the promised land was Jericho, the place where God toppled the walls.

And so the metaphor seems to speak that this "rest for the people of God" is not a place without battles, or fighting, but rather it's a place where God does most of the fighting for you. There is still a place of 'work' in some sense, but by comparison, it's God who does it all & you're left to mop up some of the mess He leaves behind (whirlwinds, hurricanes, raging fires, do have a way of leaving a bit of a mess in their aftermath)....

...and the passage warns of the ways that the first time Israel came to the promised land they weren't able to enter in because of unbelief. As I've thought more & more on that recently, I've had the thought that the whole source of their 'unbelief' came down to a self-reliance instead of a God reliance. The passage in Hebrews encourages us to 'labour to enter into rest'. The people of Israel didn't enter the place of rest the first time 'cause they were trusting in their own 'labours' - they looked at the land & saw giants & looked at their own hands, their own strength & said, "we can't do it" & backed away from the land. Then after God told them they would wander for 40 years, they again rested in their own labours & tried to enter the land & most who did so were killed.....

....but instead, the true 'labouring to enter rest' is the place of where we 'work' at moving from stubborn self-reliance to a full reliance on God. It is a labour of 'laying down our lives', of losing our souls for His sake so that we might find it. Ultimately it's a place where we stop trying to earn God's favour, acceptance, provision & blessing through our works & instead, enter into the rest of living in trust that God has given us all of these things freely out of His abundant love for us as children & as bride & as friend...

And so at the time I forget what I was thinking. Pretty sure I was sort of thinking that this was the problem of the church in general or humanity in general that everyone was too busy working to earn God's favour instead of living in the rest of the realization that, in Christ, God has poured out His favour on us as a permenant gift....

...but somewhere in there, I realized that this was my malady, my disease, as well. I realized that in every problem I face, I look at my own resources & I will 'trust' God so long as I have a back up plan. As I've said before, when I was unemployed, there were these places where I talked like I was going to trust God to provide, but I knew that mastercard had my back in case God didn't come through.... this, of course, I realized, showed my true faith, that I trusted only what I could control & didn't trust God's providence. And this example spills out through everything in my life. When friends have needs, I look to my resources first & try to give with open hand.... this is great in some ways, but in others it cheapens the power & miracle of how God could provide if I wasn't in the way trying to fix things for people..... Though there are always the needs greater than my resources (my friend Jason's epilepsy is one of these, other friends it's their financial concerns, etc.)... these are the places where I look at my resources & realize that what I have is not enough to help.... & these moments scare me & I tend to back away & beat myself up about my 'failings', my inability to really help people.... I pray about these needs, but unless I can somehow be the answer to my own prayers, I still sort of doubt that God will come through.

Part of this stems just from past hurts & disillusionment & disappointment in prayer - the places where God didn't jump to do what I commanded him like some genie bending to my wishes....

.... and so the realization that struck me that day, that sort of struck me in the churning is just how much I am still living in this state of atheistic self-reliance. I don't believe in God's provision, to true answer to prayer. I've lost hope of the miraculous & instead rely solely on the church of Kirk to provide for those around me (& myself).... & hence it's no wonder why I feel drained some days.... I make a pretty lousy god....

And so the realization led me to the place of submitting myself into community, of realizing that I need to live in a continual confession of need & inadequacy. I need to learn to lean, learn to receive, learn to be loved.... Part of the submitting to community is in the realization that the collective of a community brings much more strength & resources than that of just the individuals. A collective of people can do way more than one person alone & so in that sense, there is a 'rest' to be entered in entering into community where you are provided for by the greater whole & your resources combine with theirs for something greater.... but more than that, submitting to community is, for me anyhow, a subtle act of submitting to God.... the bible seems to speak that the church is His body, that we as a collective are somehow one with Him in a sense greater than when we are just on our own.... and so following this metaphor, coming to the community & admitting that I need help, that I'm an addict in need of counseling, a proud man in need of humbling, a weak man in need of strength, a normal man in need of love & kindness.... this is also a confession to God of laying down my striving & asking for His to fight my battles for me.... & provide for all the things I can't & help me realize that I have no resources but what He puts in my hands.....

...and yeah, I'm not very good at this.... but I'm hopefully starting to learn. & hopefully starting to learn that I can't fight through my battles on my own anymore, I need to open myself to the community & walk through the minefields with them.... (those poor people have no idea what they've gotten themselves into letting me hang out with them :) )

& so yeah, I pray that God would awaken the miraculous, that there would be a reality of seeing the place of rest. I pray for walls to crumble, enemies (the things that keep our souls bound to the lesser-thans) to be laid low, resources to be provided, to be given lands (& bank accounts) flowing with milk & honey. I pray for open wells, open hearts & for the rain of love to fall from above, to fill up every hollow place.... Love is the greatest miracle & I pray that we'd all be wealthy in it......

So yeah, with that in mind, off to bed to get some much needed sleep.