{"id":264,"date":"2016-04-30T00:35:18","date_gmt":"2016-04-30T00:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/?p=264"},"modified":"2016-04-30T00:35:18","modified_gmt":"2016-04-30T00:35:18","slug":"resting-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/?p=264","title":{"rendered":"Resting at Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. (Mathew 11:28<\/strong>)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>True rest can happen even in the midst of work.<\/p>\n

Have you ever noticed that the same workload can seem easy one day and insurmountably overwhelming the next? A few days ago, work seemed effortless, as I cruised along in the Rivers of Living Water, experiencing the joy of the Lord\u2019s nearness. However, only a day later, I \u00a0trudged through a dry dusty riverbed, pulling an overloaded donkey cart of work.<\/p>\n

What happened?<\/p>\n

As is my plan, when I noticed the shift in my heart, I reached for the \u00a0truth of God’s word. This time I turned to \u00a0Matthew 11:28. As I read, I knew the Lord was talking to me. I felt weary and heavy-laden, fatigued and over-burdened.<\/p>\n

Come to Me,\u00a0<\/em>I read<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m already with you, <\/em>I thought. You\u2019re in me and I\u2019m in You.<\/em>[1]<\/a> [2]<\/a> \u00a0You hold the universe together.<\/em>[3]<\/a> There must be more to it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Digging in, I discovered that the Greek word for \u201ccome\u201d<\/em> means \u201ccome hither\u201d<\/em> or \u201ccome this way\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Jesus is always\u00a0with<\/em> me, but here He is asking me for a deeper \u201cwithness\u201d. I thought of being\u00a0with<\/em> people in an elevator. They are with me<\/em>, but unless we engage, there\u2019s no connection.<\/p>\n

Conversely, one of my earliest memories was \u00a0walking with my great grandmother. She held my hand and \u00a0guided me around a swimming pool. Being with <\/em>her was not an option. I would have been in danger without her.<\/p>\n

This is the level of \u201cwithness\u201d Jesus is asking of me. When I comply, the rest <\/em>comes. In my backward thinking, \u00a0rest only \u00a0comes when all the work is done. Which is never, because there’s always something else to do.<\/p>\n

The rest <\/em>Jesus is offering happens even in the midst of \u00a0work, a byproduct of \u00a0heeding His call to “come this way”.<\/p>\n

Rest – take ease, refresh, refrain, come to an end. <\/em>\u00a0My striving, my focus on work, needs to end.<\/p>\n

My dutiful, weary day happened not because of the amount of work, but because work had become my focus. I knew Christ is my life, but I was living as if work was my life.<\/p>\n

Being with Jesus is rest.\u00a0Taking His yoke upon me is literally giving Him my burdens. In His yoke, my burden becomes His. The weightiest task feels light when I\u2019m following Him. \u201cFor My yoke is easy and My load is light.\u201d (Matthew 28:30)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lord, I\u2019m sorry I became so focused on work. You are my Life. Please keep me ever aware of your nearness and strength that I might continually be attentive to your leading.<\/em><\/p>\n

Challenge: <\/strong>Is there an area of your life where you feel weary and over-burdened? If so, lean in close to Jesus so that He can say \u2018come this way.\u2019 His way will be light and powerfully effective. Handling the burdens on your own is not only wearisome, but completely ineffective.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Galatians 2:20<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ephesians 2:4-6<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Colossians 1:17<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. (Mathew 11:28) \u00a0True rest can happen even in the midst of work. Have you ever noticed that the same workload can seem easy one day and insurmountably overwhelming the next? A few days ago, work seemed effortless, as I cruised … Continue reading Resting at Work<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[60,61],"tags":[70,65,71,67,69,64,66,46,62,63,68],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-god-is-our-life","category-god-is-our-strength","tag-being-with-jesus","tag-burden-light","tag-come-this-way","tag-heavy-laden","tag-learn-from-me","tag-matthew-11","tag-overloaded","tag-rest","tag-weary","tag-yoked","tag-you-shall-find-rest-for-you-soul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}