Rest…Not Reward

This has been an unsuccessful week for me.  It started off just like every other week; I wrote my to-do list and had great plans of working my way down it. Honestly I never seem to get finished with the list. I always have things that come up that are added and unexpected meetings and emergencies that stop me from working my way through the whole thing.

Well this week was particularly frustrating and I didn’t even scratch the surface of what I planned to do.  The temptation when work is undone is to overwork – to take work home, to stay up late at night, to neglect family, to even deny myself sleep or even a Sabbath (I said it…Pastors are tempted to characterize their business work as spiritual and work on it on Sabbath as well).

But in the midst of that I hear Jesus’ invitation, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Today I accept it. Despite my incomplete list, I’m going to rest. No matter how much that nagging feeling on the inside chews on me telling me I am less than because I didn’t accomplish what I should have, I’m going to rest. No matter who else demands that I keep working (even that inner workaholic), I’m going to rest.

You see I’ve figured out that God’s rest is an invitation to accept a gift.  It’s not a reward for our success, our accomplishments, our completed list. God gives us His rest because His work is finished no matter how incomplete our work is.

So today I invite you to rest. It’s not a reward…it’s a gift…

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