God Gives The Rest

Historically, as a people, Black folks have worked. We were brought to these shores to work. We have toiled the land. We have raised children not our own. We have provided care for our family members and loved ones. We have worked from ‘can’t see to can’t see’. We have worked “straight jobs and “not so straight” jobs. We have started and maintained our own businesses.

No matter the type of work, grind culture and capitalism continue to try to convince us that we are human DOINGS and we often forget that God made us human BEINGS. The world says: Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. God’s word says: In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat— for he grants sleep to those he loves.

This week, our focal prayer is to have the courage to rest in and with God. But how do we do find the courage to rest when “grind culture” makes us feel as though we must ALWAYS be doing? How do we rest when we are afraid to offend by saying “no”?

From work to school to church, we fill our calendars with things to be done. We errantly believe that people love and respect us because they always have something for us to do. We have somehow fallen into a cycle of busy-ness, and a notion that “if I am not busy then who am I”?

Let me tell you who you are. YOU are Liberated. When we rest in AND with God, we get free!

In her book Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, Tricia Hersey posits that “our bodies are a site of liberation”. Isn’t that powerful! What if we began to consider our whole selves first? Before our calendar, before our commitments, before the next “yes”. What if, as the late Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Canon said, “we do the work our souls must have”?

Today’s text provides the baseline for that work. And that work requires that we let go because God Gives The Rest. God wants us at our best and we can’t fully show up if we’re tired. We can’t be the best version of who God has called us to be if we are exhausted. We cannot pour from empty vessels.

So, as we continue this Lenten journey let us be reminded that God has given us freedom. When we labor in God and we labor with God that labor brings us clarity, that labor can bring us peace. To labor with God is to surrender. To labor in God is to say ‘here I am, I am sitting (or laying) so that I might rest so that I might hear from you God’.

Our prayer to have the courage to rest is a daily prayer and for some of us possibly multiple times a day! Rest is revolutionary and no revolution is successful without commitment, steadfastness and intention. Today and for the all the days that follow, KNOW that you are more than the things you do. This Lenten Season be intentional about rest!  Be intentional about BEING.

Prayer: God of love, God of grace, God of mercy – hear our cries for the courage to rest. Then God, grant us that courage and strengthen us to endure the tests that will surely come as we get closer to you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.