Our relationship with God started with rest. These words were either produced in my mind after listening to a specific sermon or it’s a quote from that said teaching. But either way, these words are true.
Our relationship with God started with rest.
The earth, of which He formed, began with darkness, solitude, silence, emptiness. A place marked by rest, not loneliness or isolation, but rest. And the only thing God did was speak and creation began – there was light, which has since been a never-ending harmonious rhythm, and sound, the first of many.
God created the world and filled it from a place of rest. Not in order to rest or in need of rest, but enabled by rest.
He does the same for us. When we come to him, over and over again.
Maybe that’s what David was alluding to in Psalm 23:
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever (verses 1-3; 6, 7).
As I’m writing some of these words, I’m nearly 38 weeks pregnant with our third sweet baby. Slowing down, surrendering to rest and inviting solitude is all I seem to be doing these days. With rest on my heart and mind, especially before birthing a beautiful tiny new created being into this world, it only felt fitting for me to be typing these words.
In preparing our home for another soul, we’re also preparing our hearts and minds. We are preparing to celebrate a new life, and there’s always lots to do before a birth, but without proper rest and attention to my inner being, I know that I may fail to realize what my body is telling me, what my very soul is in need of. Second Corinthians 4:16b-18 says, “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” This passage is speaking about suffering in order to bring God glory, and laboring is a sacrifice, an act of suffering for a little while before we see God’s glory in another image bearer, as tiny as they come. Without rest, I know my heart and mind and soul — my inner being — will also feel as if it’s wasting away under the sleepless nights and 24/7 nurturing rhythms. In preparing for our baby, I’m surrendering instead of resisting, I’m allowing God’s work of renewal to take place instead of the act of striving to rule in my heart, which is my natural tendency.
And the Sabbath teaches us to do just that. To surrender to God’s renewal.
When we choose to Sabbath, we begin to work from a place of rest. We begin to parent from a place of rest. We serve from a place of rest. We live and do and simply be from a place of rest. And that place is where the sages of history, our father’s of the faith and where Jesus himself went, the eremos.
In Greek, the word eremos means “the lonely place” or “the deserted place” — we find it in scripture when Jesus is brought into the wilderness and times when Jesus spends early mornings alone with God somewhere in the mountains.
I’ve asked myself lately where is my eremos in this season? Where do I meet with God, sit with God, listen to Him, become more like Him? The dark quiet moments before the sun rises or kids come running into our bedroom to wake us up. I find myself in the eremos when sitting in silence, on my knees praying, watching birds fly from branch to branch, stepping outside in the crisp autumn air, watching my children breathe when they sleep. It’s in the eremos where God seems the closest, where my heart is most in tune to His song, where I remember Who’s I am. And the Sabbath is a weekly mountain top journey with God — not a mountain top experience, but a day set aside every week to stop, resist, surrender, rest, delight, listen and worship God.
You Are Special written by Max Lucado is hands down one of my favorite books. Punchinello is a little wooden man living in a town full of wooden people called Whemmicks, all created by the same craftsman. Every Whemmick has the power to give other Whemmicks two types of stickers — gold stars for all the wonderful things they are and can do — special talents, giftings, outward beauty, etc., and grey dots to those who are not so “special” — they aren’t tall or beautiful and who’s paint is often chipped. Punchinello was one of the Whemmicks who was only given grey dots, never stars, and eventually, after so many dots were stuck onto him he didn’t want to leave his house, he was afraid and ashamed.
And one day Punchinello met Lucia, who was unique because she didn’t have either stars or dots. Punchinello noticed and asked Lucia how she didn’t have either stars or dots, and she responded by saying “It’s easy, every day I go see Eli.”
“Eli?”
“Yes, Eli. The woodcarver. I sit in the workshop with him.”
“Why?”
“Why don’t you find out for yourself? Go up the hill. He’s there.”
The next day Punchinello, as scared as he was, gave it a try — he went to Eli’s workshop and to his surprise Eli knew his name. Eli also didn’t care about all the grey dots Punchinello had, “I don’t care what the other Whemmick’s think.” Eli responded when Punchinello tried to defend himself.
“You don’t?” asked Punchinello in confusion.
“No, and you shouldn’t either. Who are they to give you stars or dots? They’re Whemmicks just like you. What they think doesn’t matter, Punchinello. All that matters is what I think. And I think you are pretty special.”
When Punchinello asked why Eli thought he was so special, “Eli looked at Punchinello, put his hands on those small wooden shoulders, and spoke very slowly. ‘Because you’re mine. That’s why you matter to me…Every day I’ve been hoping you’d come…The stickers only stick if they matter to you. The more you trust my love, the less you care about their stickers…just come see me every day and let me remind you how much I care.”
As Punchinello was leaving Eli called out, “Remember, you are special because I made you. And I don’t make mistakes.”
When Punchinello heard these words, he believed his Maker, and a dot fell to the ground.
Punchinello found his eremos. Where he could meet with his Maker, listen to the words he spoke over him, Punchinello rested in his Makers care and slowly became more like Him. Punchinello got a glimmer of what the Psalmist meant when he said “Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6-7). The book doesn’t tell us what Punchinello did or thought in the days after meeting with Eli that first time, but my guess is that he stood a little taller, stopped believing lies and cared more about what his Craftsman thought of him rather than what the other Whemmick’s thought. My guess is that dots continued to fall right to the ground. Punchinello began to live from a place of rest, not after a good night sleep or a “self care” day, but after meeting with his Maker and resting in His care.
Eli’s invitation for Punchinello to come to him reminds me a lot of Jesus’ invitation to come. “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
We can find our eremos every day if we truly want to — nestled up in a chair with coffee in hand and our Bible in our laps, we can find it on a walk through a park, sitting in silence as the sun rises, going for a drive up into the mountains — every day we can meet with our Maker, but there’s something special about the Sabbath. On the Sabbath we don ‘t simply meet with God over a cup of coffee before we begin our work day, it’s an entire day set aside to stop — stop working, striving, producing, wanting — and to physically rest, delight in what we already have and all of this culminates to worshipping a God who desires to know us. John Mark Comer, in his book Practicing the Way, quotes a man who begins each day sitting in silence with God. The man describes his mornings as sitting “looking at Him looking at me, loving me.”
Punchinello saw the way his Maker looked at him, as so undeniably special; the Psalmist knew his place in God’s kingdom, as one who is lovingly taken care of and desired to be hosted; and we, too, can rest in God’s loving gaze upon our very being.
When we choose to celebrate the Sabbath, we experience our Great Shepherd leading us to quiet waters refreshing our souls and guiding us down the right paths. We are more in tune with his love for us. We hear and know our Shepherds voice. And the days that follow are marked by doing our daily tasks — working, playing with kids, grocery shopping, serving others, doing dishes — from a place of rest.
Sabbathing, especially with littles and business to run and a never-ending list of to-do’s, is nothing but easy. But the yoke and burden Jesus places on us is easy and light. Our pastor reminded me a few months ago that the easy yoke and light burden of Jesus is a replacement not an addition. The Sabbath is not something we add to our schedule – it isn’t rigid or straining or another thing to pencil into our busy weeks – it’s a replacement – a free gift, an invitation – that isn’t heavy or burdensome. And when we trust in his offered yoke, we begin to live each day differently, we live from a place of rest.