Rest
28 Then Yeshua said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)
Have you ever taken the time to sit in a completely silent room? Somewhere outside of the constant distractions of everyday life: work, school, family, friends. A room in which the buzzing sound of your device can’t reach you and the constant news cycle is brought to a stop. It’s a moment in time in which your body decompresses and starts to release all of the stress accumulated. It’s a moment of rest. Within your life, you need to be able to insert times of rest for yourself and Yahweh. It becomes a time to rejuvenate and renew yourself.
Life is stressful. The system that the world imposes is that you are to spend everyday working so that you may accomplish what the body claims it needs. Your body needs to eat? Have a comfortable place to sleep? Have clothes? Therefore you need money. While working hard is not bad and is even a good thing in the eyes of Yahweh when it is done for Him (Colossians 3:23), putting your life in this type of situation is bad. The constant search for money and earthly things, then we are truly the most pitiful (1 Corinthians 15:19), for all of these earthly things will disappear (Matthew 5:18).
The consequences of a life without rest, one where you remain working is not one that is positive. This is something that is echoed in literature that is far away from biblical readings: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller present the same moral. You become sad and depressed, knowing that you will never accomplish your goal as there is not enough money in the world to satisfy anyone’s desires. Biblical figures such as David (Psalms 38:4), Job (Job 3:26), Elijah (1 Kings 19:4), and Jonah (Jonah 4:3) all faced such feelings, but found themselves in better spirits once they realized that true rest and happiness came from Yahweh alone.
David says in the scripture “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord” (Psalm 122:1). It’s because he understood that it is in His presence that one receives true rest. Matthew 11:28 shows that Yeshua gives rest, as He is also the Master of Sabbath (Matthew 12:1-8, Mark 2:23-28 and Luke 6:1-5). The time of Sabbath, that spans from Friday evening to Saturday evening at sunset is a time in which Yahweh has set aside for you to spend time in His house and in His presence (Hebrews 10:24-25), to receive the all important concept of rest, for man wasn’t made for Sabbath but Sabbath for man (Mark 2:27-28).
When the Lord created the Sabbath at creation (Genesis 2:1 - 3), He did it so that all of creation can take time to rest, just as He did. It’s an expression of love that He would set into stone with the ten commandments (Exodus 20:8 - 10). From there, He wants us to be able to make time for Him for there is a time for everything (Ecclesiastes 3). He will give you rest as it is the time that He has ordered rest, that, out of the love that He has for you for obeying Him and having faith in Him.