God wants you to be relaxed. He wants you to be full of life and peace. While life can be stressful, He wants you to know He’s got you back and will take you through the struggles and trials. This is not what the world tells you. The world invites you to be stressed, worried, anxious, and lacking.
Every day it seems the world is getting more an more complicated, moving faster and faster. No one can keep up and many people I interact with are exceedingly anxious about many things. It makes me think of a passage that is near and dear to me because it hits home, describing me well. Mary and Martha are spending time with Jesus and Martha is working while Mary is resting. Jesus invites Martha to choose Him. “‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one.” She is too busy to recognize only the Lord is needed. I often forget this simple fact.
I’m a very driven and motivated person but I’m not acter game and fortune. It’s an internal desire to just be the best that I can. Unfortunately, that means I’m very busy. I’m always running in 6 different directions, tackling my never ending to do list, and often feeling exhausted while telling myself it didn’t do enough. Sound familiar? I think any people are in this boat, crazily sprinting through life while not making much progress. I think I’m chasing the wrong thing, idolizing the busyness. It has been said, having an idol is anything that draws you away from God and his love. I definitely fall prey to that trap.
Since God’s love means He wants the best for us, he wants us to rest in Him. Give up our cares and concerns to Him. Instead of chasing after things on the treadmill of life, being distracted by all the chaos of jobs and family and relationships and things, we can seek God. That’s not to say those things aren’t important. But they’re not what is needed. Only one thing is needed.
I’ll close with something my wife shared about rest that I thought was very eloquent. “Rest is a radical act of self love in a world that glorifies exhaustion”. Even when we’re exhausted, it’s not enough. That doesn’t sound like love. And God is inviting us to a different perspective. Only one thing is needed; His love.
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