Rest

Think with me about rest.

I started today at a deficit. Didn’t shower because I legit needed the extra 20 min of sleep. Needed to run two important errands after getting the older kids to school. Wanted desperately to skip them—especially because one was getting my driver’s license renewed and, as I said, I didn’t shower and was wearing “preworn” clothes.

But, God gave me this window to get these things done and I’d been waiting for a window like this for a month! So I went.

The lying world tells me that I should just do what I feel like. I should skip the important errands and watch Netflix. The lying world says that sin is restful. But rest is found in obedience. That’s where Jesus, our rest, is—he’s obeying, even when he’d been lashed, even when he was exhausted, even when he was betrayed.

That means I can obey, even with gross hair. Even if it’s doing something small, but good, like getting the birth certificates we need and by making sure I’m a legal vehicle operator.

There is more rest in difficult, costly obedience than sin. Sin and rest can’t co-exist. That shop therapy, that Netflix binge, that shirking of real responsibility—it can never bring rest, just restlessness and gnawing.

But there is gladness and peace in making our Father glad through obedience. Yes—our obeying pleases him. Don’t let any perversion of the Gospel tell you that what you do or don’t do doesn’t matter to God. He’s your Father. Of course your obedience matters, he actually loves you. He cares about what you do.

"So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil." - 2 Corinthians 5:9-10

Written by Abigail Dodds.