"Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.
If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people."
Micah 2:10-11
I think a lot of times in life that we think that we have found our "rest." We think... this is where I can stop. This is where I am finally going to really invest my time. This is what I care about and nothing else. And, no matter what that is or how worthy it seems, God very very often says to us, "arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest." And we whine and cry and we don't understand because we feel ragged and we want to stop. We want to dedicate ourselves to something with a relatively narrow focus and forget the rest. :) That's why we often want to make prophets of people who say that it is okay to forget the world... drink the world away, or whatever other addiction of choice takes us away from the world.
Almost always, the things that we want to be our rest aren't what God has in mind. All of them are polluted in some way... not necessarily inherently so, but polluted because they tempt us to focus on a narrow area and dedicate all to that, and to forget the bigger picture and the people outside that small circle. Now this doesn't mean that we can't have stellar careers or nurture our families with fervor, or dedicate time to other worthy causes. It just means that we have to have balance. We can't become workaholics or shut out everyone besides our families. We can't care about this one group and let everyone else rot. :) There are still things to do, and it isn't time to rest yet. We still have the straight and narrow path before us, and we need to walk it to the end.
Today, let's use the Sabbath "day of rest" to renew ourselves for another week, and take the time to prepare and recharge. Then, let's get out there and build a Zion society, and work to bring to pass God's kingdom. No need to despair. Our true rest will come, in God's way and in God's time... and it will be infinitely better than any of the rest stops that we had picked out for ourselves.
If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people."
Micah 2:10-11
I think a lot of times in life that we think that we have found our "rest." We think... this is where I can stop. This is where I am finally going to really invest my time. This is what I care about and nothing else. And, no matter what that is or how worthy it seems, God very very often says to us, "arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest." And we whine and cry and we don't understand because we feel ragged and we want to stop. We want to dedicate ourselves to something with a relatively narrow focus and forget the rest. :) That's why we often want to make prophets of people who say that it is okay to forget the world... drink the world away, or whatever other addiction of choice takes us away from the world.
Almost always, the things that we want to be our rest aren't what God has in mind. All of them are polluted in some way... not necessarily inherently so, but polluted because they tempt us to focus on a narrow area and dedicate all to that, and to forget the bigger picture and the people outside that small circle. Now this doesn't mean that we can't have stellar careers or nurture our families with fervor, or dedicate time to other worthy causes. It just means that we have to have balance. We can't become workaholics or shut out everyone besides our families. We can't care about this one group and let everyone else rot. :) There are still things to do, and it isn't time to rest yet. We still have the straight and narrow path before us, and we need to walk it to the end.
Today, let's use the Sabbath "day of rest" to renew ourselves for another week, and take the time to prepare and recharge. Then, let's get out there and build a Zion society, and work to bring to pass God's kingdom. No need to despair. Our true rest will come, in God's way and in God's time... and it will be infinitely better than any of the rest stops that we had picked out for ourselves.
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