Rest & Renewal

Wednesday: 11 December, 2013 –– 2nd Week in Advent

Isaiah 40:25–31 / Matthew 11:28–30

Rest & Renewal

Weariness is a reality. Our bodies get tired.

Sometimes it’s a satisfying weariness. We’ve worked hard and accomplished much, and rest comes easily at the end of a long, hard day.

Too often, it seems, we experience another kind of weariness. It’s the restlessness that comes from worry and stress. It’s the awareness of a foreboding cloud which seems always to be hovering all too near.

It’s to that kind of burden we hear the words of our Lord: Come to me.... and I will give you rest.

This is because Jesus is the Word made Flesh. God has entered our situation. Jesus knows what it’s like to live a human life in a weary world.

At the same time,

The LORD is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary,

his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint,

and to him who has no might he increases strength.

The most wearying thing we can do (or try to do) is to control what is beyond our control. So much of our worry and stress is about things we want to direct or change. Those are the things where God invites us to come to him.... and TRUST. I have to remind myself that even if I had the power to control things, I don’t have the wisdom to control things. God has both!

So Jesus says, Come to me.... leave it with me.... believe that my love is big enough to bring life even out of death. Because,

they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint.