So the revelation is coming far faster than my ability to write it which always seems to be the way! I love when God sweeps you up in a whirlwind of His heart. It is like He has been waiting with baited breath for us to finally be quiet and ask "so how does it work?" or "what is your way of doing things?". At that moment of questioning, of finally wanting simply to learn, God pours forth revelation, ideas, new insight, fresh perspectives and things we never thoughts possible. An upside down kingdom. If we would just remain learners, not people with agendas, maybe we would experience the overflowing bubbly excited teaching of God more often...I know I would.

As soon as I really started asking the question about a rest lifestyle and gave God room to actually speak about it, I have been finding keys everywhere! The keys of freedom, sovereignty, grace and listening. And the fact that every key to a rest lifestyle is exactly the same as the one for a life of freedom in Him. Whatever binds us and makes us captive, whether it be thought, perspective or behaviour, instantly pulls us from the place of rest and peace.

How can you be at rest when your thoughts shout their expectations at you? When you are trying to live a certain way, be a certain way, fight a certain thing or are governed by behaviour, other people or your circumstances? However tiny the infringement may be, anything that has crept in and taken even the tiniest piece of your freedom...has by natural extension, also stolen your rest.

This Sunday one of our church leaders spoke on God's goodness, on the message of grace, on freedom and identity. It was stupendous and worth a listen (http://www.citylife.org.uk/Groups/92536/City_Life_Church/Downloads/Audio/Audio.aspx) but basically she was speaking about what we believe determining how we live. Everything and anything we believe about ourselves from the huge (I'm worthless, I am a control freak, I am ugly) to what could be viewed as the smaller (I am afraid of spiders, I am not good at speaking, I am a terrible cook) etc ALL are us defining ourselves, our identities based on labels and values and perceptions of others and ourselves we have built up over the years. We carry so much of this that we probably don't even notice most of them. Most of them, if not all...are lies.

Maybe we have thought we are sinners, that we have to earn our way out, that our self effort is necessary, that our identity labels are well earned and that this is "just who I am". Read this next bit slowly and carefully...it is important:

"Contrary to what we often think - our beliefs affect our feelings, thoughts and actions. If we believe wrong, we will feel wrong, think wrong and do wrong! Many of us have believed the Good News is something to live up to and not something to live by. Many of us have believed our actions can destroy our relationship with God. But we are either children of God through Jesus or we are sinners, we cannot be both! There is no such thing as a sinful child of God (although there are children of God who sometimes sin because they’ve forgotten who they are!) We can either live by grace or by self-effort, but not by both (although this unfortunately is what I and many others have tried to do). We can either believe God wants to reward us and bless us as his children or believe that he only rewards our best efforts and withholds blessing from us if we fail to meet the standard, we cannot do both. Which will we choose today?

When we see and believe that Jesus loves us so much that he went to the cross to make us sinless and righteous like him – we will live like it and sin no more. We will be the happiest people on the planet, and we will have a great reputation with others."

- B.Webb

In true freedom there is true rest. Jesus said on the cross "It is finished" and He said to His disciples: "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." John 14:27 When Jesus came to this earth, two incredible gifts He gave us were; total freedom and total peace.

There is a reason that every tormented, broken, injured person He healed He sent away with the words "go in peace". His gift to us, the sign of our true freedom...

...is peace...and the ability to rest.

Definitions

Peace

of Christianity, the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot, of whatsoever sort that is

Rest

1) to cause or permit one to cease from any movement or labour in order to recover and collect his strength

2) to give rest, refresh, to give one's self rest, take rest

3) to keep quiet, of calm and patient expectation

This morning as I continue to pray and pursue God's presence and His rest, I came across a question and answer session recorded at Holy Give school in Mozambique back in 2007. During this session Rolland Baker is asked about the sovereignty of God, a question often discussed with regards to control and free choice. What he replied so summed it up for me that I have transcribed it below. Here is our first key to the question of rest...

"Once you find out what kind of a God He is, I realise He is much better than me, He knows what is good and what to do with the rest of my life and how best to do things, who I should be with, where I should go, what gifts i need, what i should be doing.

Some people like the idea of changing Gods mind and taking control and taking hold of their destiny etc…but my point of view is that the less independent we are from God, the more assured we are that He is going to be with us. The less confident we are, the less at peace we are, the more concerned we are whether or not He is going going to be with us next and be interested in what we are doing and support us. The more confident we are that we are in His will instead of ours, the more confident we are that He will be with us and will be interested and want to help us.

And since He knows us better than we know ourselves, He knows better what we should be doing. So I am just finding out that at that point where I am feeling most secure, the safest, the most Holy and the most free and doing the absolutely best thing that I could be doing, absolutely freely, the most freely possible, that is exactly the point t which theHoly Spirit is most in control.

Because His control is not the kind of control we have. Our kind of control forces people to do things they don't wanna do, makes them feel controlled. But His control is the opposite, His control sets us free - where the Holy Spirit is there is freedom. So when He is in control, He has greater relationship within us with Him that makes us the most totally free, so we experience total free choice. That is the dichotomy, the paradox.

The point at which we feel the most free is the SAME point at which He is in most control.

The farther away we get from this control the less free we feel because we start to get controlled again by our own doubts and issues. So sovereignty to me does not mean that I feel more controlled, more constricted and less free, sovereignty means to me that if I desire God and have hunger for Him and am repentant, He has the power to finish what He began in us and I can be confident that He is going to complete His workmanship in me and that is where I will find rest and peace. Without the sovereignty of God I am concerned about whether I am going to make the right choices, whether or not I have what it takes, have the right stuff etc and lots of things are much more in doubt.

So it is the only way I can rest, trusting His ability to fix me and save me from my self. "

The only way we can rest is to embrace God's sovereignty, make room for it in our lives, in fact to direct our lives so that we need Him to be sovereign in every area. The less self sufficient, the less altogether that we have things, the less in control and sorted and without need we are…the less place of true rest we can accomplish.

Oh the upside down kingdom! I love that heaven is full of paradoxes, this one is my most favourite yet. Here I have been spending all my energy trying to sort and clear up doubts and put together schedules and plans and finance etc and all along God has been asking me to:

"Seek first the kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you"

Rest looks like letting go of control and recognising that God is sovereign, allowing Him to be Lord.

No wonder Jesus said:

"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule."

This morning I continue my journey to explore rest, to ask afresh the question of how Jesus modelled life, what He demonstrated to His disciples not just through words but through His actions. I am astounded again as I read the gospels, trying hard to take off my culture filtering glasses for a moment and simply read.

He did not appear to walk obsessed by destination. Nor was He fixated on finding specific people to heal, deliver or meet with. He and His disciples walked when hey wanted to walk, ate when they were hungry and found somewhere to rest when they were tired. People followed Him as He sat and told stories, proclaimed the news of the kingdom and healed the sick. The thing that strikes me the most as I read chapter after chapter of Jesus' life,

is how laid back it all is.

Now I know some of this is because of the culture He was in, but God knew what He was doing in choosing Israel 2000 years ago for Him to be born rather than a technologically obsessive work driven, financially motivated, media centric world to bring Him to. Just because something is different in circumstance or time frame, does not make it irrelevant to us.

He walked. People followed

He sat. People sat

He taught, some listened, some did not

He healed

He rested

He prayed

He walked some more.

Aside from getting pretty heated about the temple being used by money changers and the pharisees living hypocritically to what they were teaching the people, Jesus doesn't appear to raise His voice, get irate, be worried about getting anywhere on time, have a schedule in mind, be worried about missing opportune moments or even be bothered about His public appearance.

He carried a message of the kingdom that He shared with everyone, regardless of who or where they were. He healed everyone who asked (and, I would imagine, a few who didn't). He walked and taught and spent time with His friends, mentoring and sharing life with them and taking them away for rest when they had been working hard. He often made time to get away alone and pray and spend time with the Father. He spoke of peace, love and faith. He gave God all the credit and looked to Him for every move He made.

I don't see any stress here, or striving, or scheduling.

Was this just "for a season"? or could it be this is actually how we are meant to live our lives?

It has occurred to me that after about 7 years of writing and blogging thousands of thoughts and reflections, I have recently become very quiet indeed, especially this past year. No doubt it is because 2011 was for many, including myself, a particularly tough year. It has its struggles, its challenges and most painfully, its disappointments. But I rather feel that the true reason for my lack of blogging was that each of those things create within us an unwanted place of vulnerability that is most raw and we strive to keep most hidden and definitely not write about. It is the vulnerability of uncertainty.

I could speak about Rob Bell's incredibly empowering approach to the place of suffering and hardship and the creativity that blossoms from it, maybe someday soon I shall. I could quickly turn and recognise that this past year has in fact been so blessed and full of incredible provision and God's faithfulness that to even acknowledge minor troubles is fruitless and somehow dishonouring. I could even quote Job and recognise with fear and trembling that God is all powerful and I should neither question Him nor recognise "struggles" with communing with Him through these times.

I am going to do none of those. There is only one thing I think I can do in response to this past year and the year ahead (of which I have NO IDEA what it holds) and that is...

To simply begin to write again and write the truth. Whatever that may be.

Today the truth is that it feels ironic that someone who is beginning a house of prayer finds sitting with the Lord in the quiet place sometimes so hard.

This past year has rendered my devotional life tried at best. Scurrying from one thing to another, trying to juggle five jobs and international travel every month or two as well as numerous house moves have all given rise to very viable excuses to why my body (especially my brain) has no time to be truly quiet and rested.

So that is where this years blogs are going to begin. I am truly passionate about one question at this moment, it is a question I have been pursuing since the Romania dream began and it is one that I will hot foot after for years to come.

"What does a life of rest look like within the context of full time ministry/ missions (or work for that matter?)?"

Instead of being hung up on rest looking like sleep and soaking and hours of meditation or scripture study or any other number of things, my question is far more about a rest lifestyle. We are meant to ask WWJD right? Look at what He modelled and showed us and emulate it?

Well, Jesus chose to rest, all the time in fact. He travelled and spoke and healed and preached for hours and days and weeks. Yet, in places where yet another incredible miracle story could have been told, the gospels again and again repeat to us, demonstrate what Jesus was doing during His life of ministry:

And in the morning, long before daylight, He got up and went out to a deserted place, and there He prayed.Mark 1:35

And after He had taken leave of them, He went off into the hills to pray.Mark 6:46

But He Himself withdrew [in retirement] to the wilderness (desert) and prayed. Luke 5:16

Now in those days it occurred that He went up into a mountain to pray, and spent the whole night in prayer to God.Luke 6:12

He took Himself away, He rested, He made time. When things seemed the most ideal, opportune, needy etc, He was getting into a boat, going up a mountainside, hiding (unsuccessfully) in a house. I am in no way saying that one trumps the other, that we should sacrifice our love for the poor to be reclusive in search of a monastic prayer life, in fact Jesus' life and message is quite the opposite. What I am saying is that the pendulum has swung too far the other way, we have determined our lives and our schedules by the things we need to do rather than by His priorities. We are being driven by the wrong thing.

I have no idea what true rest in the midst of great suffering, need, uncertainty, financial crisis, hundreds of children, war zones and disasters could possibly look like, practically, tangibly. I don't know within those moments how to continue to truly sit and have regular dedicated time with Him without my mind wandering a million places or ending up praying for a list of things worrying me. All I know is that discovering that answer means that we need to be honest first. If all the focused attention I manage today is a moment with Him, if we just catch a glance of each other…I know that His promise remains…

"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.]" - Matthew 11:28

Jesus, teach me how to rest so that as I walk into this broken, work driven, desperate world, I will be full of enough of your rest and peace that others lives will be transformed and brought to you, the only one with the answer. Amen.