The Rest of Restoration: A Meditation for Crisis

Dear Friends, this week I share another excerpt from my newest devotional for people who have experienced “crisis” —”radically life-altering circumstances.” If you enjoy this, please be sure to share and check out the entire devotional, From Recovery to Restoration: 60 Meditations for Finding Peace & Hope in Crisis. It was written for times such as these.

The Rest of Restoration

And on the seventh day God finished

all the work that he had done, and

he rested on the seventh day from

all his work that he had done.

GENESIS 2:2, ESV

THE FIRST TIME I recovered from shoulder surgery, I was blindsided by the fatigue. My limbs hung limp, heavy and sluggish; my nerves were frenzied by pain. Restful sleep eluded me. Meanwhile, the items on my to-do list stacked up in direct proportion to my incapacitation. Recovery fatigue set in; what I desperately needed was rest.

On the seventh day of creation, after God had placed the finishing touches on his masterpiece — his image-bearers, he rested (Genesis 2:2). God rested because his work, his plan, his purpose, was fully accomplished. The Lord rested as only the ruler of the cosmos can rest.

The Lord designed his image-bearers for rest and called them to receive this gift: “Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work…” (Deuteronomy 5:12-14). The Lord knew that we needed rest; the Lord knew that to experience this rest, we would need to trust him completely.

What are you to do, though, when the housework piles up but you can’t lift your arm after shoulder surgery? When soggy carpets need to be stripped before mold sets in after the flood? When sleep won’t come because you’re worried about the child support check? Surely you can’t just do nothing?

God set a Sabbath rhythm: to work and to rest, to work and to rest. We may not be able to do the housework, but we can ask for help from others, and we can rest in receiving. We can strip the carpets, but then we must rest from that work. And as far as the child support check, there is a time to pursue and a time to pray, there is a time to trust, and a time to wait on God’s provision.

In addition to physical, mental, and emotional rest, we desperately need the rest of restoration provided by Jesus. As Richard D. Phillips explains, “If you have put your faith in this saving God, if you have trusted his gospel in Jesus Christ, you now can rest…. You can face the prospect of loss in this life, of suffering, and even of death, for ours is the God of the Sabbath, who established his purposes forever from the beginning. Through faith in him you enter into his rest.”24

Dear friend, in this season of weight and weariness, hear the call of the One who has bought with his life the rest you crave.Come to Jesus, who invites you to the rest of restoration.

PRAYER

Father, God,

Thank you for your Sabbath rest, and thank you for the ultimate rest granted in Jesus. Help us to come to you for every kind of rest we need in our recovery.

AMEN.

FURTHER ENCOURAGEMENT

• Read Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11; Hebrews 4:9-10.

• Listen to “Good to Me” by Audrey Assad.

FOR REFLECTION

In what ways are you struggling with the need for rest or the inability to rest? Write a short letter to God about what things you need to entrust to him so you can gain needed rest.