Rest for the soul.
This Story is to help people to understand the difference between the thoughts of their flesh, the reality of their spirit and the burdens of their souls. And finding that rest restored!
Mathew 11:28 Come unto me all yea that labour and are heavy laden. and I will give you rest, :29 take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
To rest is to: cease from our labors. Including our “labors and struggles of darkness” in the soul. we find here the rest Jesus promised is soul rest. notice he did not say rest of the body or rest of the spirit or rest of the mind. When there is rest in the soul, these will follow!
Try to follow this story: You were working in the hot sun hauling hay into the barn, the sweat is running down your face, your eyes are burning from the salty sweat. your mouth is thick, salty and dry. perhaps your forehead is burning and raw from all the wiping of sweat. and you say “I’m going to sit down awhile”. You walk over to the water pump and your tired weak arms start pumping the handle. The water comes splashing out so you stick your head under the spout. it feels so good and refreshing! it felt so good you laughed a hearty happy laugh that sprang from the pure joy and happiness because of it! you cup your hands and start gulping down the cool clear water. It goes down real good! It tastes sweet compared to the salty sweat you have been tasting all morning. You go to the porch and retrieve the water bucket. dumping out the warm water with the thin coat of dust that’s settled on top. You rinse it out and fill it up till its running over with the cool water.
Now you’re sitting on the porch in the shade, and swinging on the porch swing, pouring water on your head, gulping it down and very happy to do so. it’s days like this that make life so good. The porch swing feels good to your tired aching body. the water dipper hangs on the wall, but you’re not interested in dipped water. you’re sitting there pouring water right out of the bucket on your head. the hot air is cooled by the shade and the water, it all feels so very good and refreshing! You let your mind wonder to the swimming hole, that’s at the bottom of the hill behind the house, and a wagon load of memories comes back to you. the heat brings you back to the present, so you do another soaking up and gulping down. then you say “that sure feels good. but I ‘ve got to get back to work.”
In this scene, we can understand the physical tiredness of the body. we see the mental refreshing in the reflections of the swimming hole and the mental rest he received when he remembered those happy times. we can also see how his spirit was lifted up into happiness and the innocent laughter rolled out, when the water was pouring over his hot sweaty head. But physical rest doesn’t last forever. You have to go back to work and return to your laboring. The physical rest, the mental rest and the spirit rest were all needed.
Jesus said “you will find rest unto your souls.” Physical rest is good and it can lift your spirit, and bring happiness to the mind, but it won’t do anything for your soul.
Let me explain it another way.
Suppose you’re back in the barn again, up high in the hay loft and you’re stacking hay bales again. suppose you pick up a bale of hay and discover there is a magazine under it. you think,” what’s this?” you pick it up and discover it is filled with shocking pictures of people doing things they should never be doing. You feel dirty, you feel weak somehow, you feel like you just did something wrong, (You Did! You looked at it!) Your attitude changed for the worse. you start seeing people differently, in a way that’s not good. You get back to work, but now, you have to be an actor. Trying to pretend you didn’t change, while trying to hide your dirty thoughts and remembering the dirty pictures you saw. Something happened to you that you can’t explain. you feel very dirty inside and miserable. Even now, you see “others” in ways that’s not good. You can’t help it. This change, has changed you for the worse. People ask you what’s wrong? You don’t look happy anymore. You know they are right, but you’re not about to tell them what you did. a few nights later, you take the garbage out of the house, to burn it in the burn barrel out in the yard. But first you have a little errand to do! You go back to the barn, to the work bench, where you hid that dorty magazine, it’s in the same place you threw it a few days ago. it’s the first thing you burn in the trash barrel. your glad it’s gone. you don’t know where it came from, but you sure know where it went! you say “that thing is a bunch of trash”.
But burning the magazine didn’t do anything for your soul. you still feel ashamed that you ever looked at it. You still feel the darkness. So, the next day, your back in the barn, you’re working harder than you ever worked. your mad, but only at yourself. the sweats running down your face and into your eyes. your shirt is soaked, your forehead is burning from the salt and the chaffing of being wiped so frequently. your hands are starting to blister and your exhausted. But your mad, so you really don’t care. you have worked yourself into being heat sick, and now you have to stop. You go back to the water pump. it’s the same pump with the same handle and same spout you had before. you sit on the same porch, you do the same splash down with the same bucket, you sit on the same porch swing, and feel the same cool water.
But there’s no peace, there’s no laughing under the spout, there’s no sweetness to the water, there’s no refreshing to it. It’s the same porch swing, but it’s not the same you. It’s you that changed. To be more exact, your soul changed. Instead of your mind drifting to the swimming whole, with all the fun you had, your mind goes back to that magazine. You can’t even look at others, without your eye or thoughts going places it should not be going. Somehow that thing has captured you. there’s a darkness to it and you, and your more miserable than ever.
you have discovered that physical rest, no matter how good it may be, or how badly you needed it, isn’t the same as soul rest. your soul is laboring under the darkness of what you did, and there is no amount of water or resting can ever bring peace or rest to your soul.
Jesus said” come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest”.
all that shame, guilt, anger, and darkness is the heavy burden of the soul. Jesus didn’t say if you work really hard, you will feel better, neither did he promise to send you some help with your responsibilities. Jesus wasn’t talking about that kind of rest. He’s talking about that heavy load of guilt and darkness you’ve been packing around and making excuses for. Jesus wants to wash down your soul with his soul cleansing blood. He wants to forgive you for your sins.
Jesus wants to restore your laughter and renew your strength. Jesus wants to rebuild your self-esteem. he wants to send you a refreshing breeze of joy, peace and mercy. all this he wants to do in your soul. and when he does, it greatly restores all the other depths of you. only Jesus can do that. if we try to escape our guilt in any other way, it’s called running from God. things will only get worse for us. you will become so very dark in your soul. until one day, you will be far worse than the magazine you started with. Then you won’t feel ashamed anymore, because you have become darker than the magazine. who will help you then? who can stop you then? You can’t even stop yourself or help yourself! there is a word for that condition. it’s called LOST! you can stay lost all your life. and all your life be looking for something you cannot find. there are some things that may help for a while, but they won’t last, and when they are done, you will feel even worse. you cannot outrun yourself. you have lost your innocence, your rest and your peace is gone! your life is dark. perhaps the thoughts of death and hell trouble you.
But Jesus hasn’t changed! His power to forgive hasn’t changed! His divine love and his promises are still there! they have never changed!
When Jesus said” I will give you rest”, he was talking about soul rest!
Soul rest: to cease from the burdens of darkness. to drink deep from the cool waters of life. To have his refreshing breeze of peace again! It’s’ like sitting on the porch swing on a beautiful day and visiting with the best friend you ever had!
1 John 1:9 says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. THAT’S SOUL REST.
So now it’s noon time, your back in the barn finishing up the hay. it’s still very hot and your tired. the dinner bell rings out its old familiar sound that says it’s time to eat. but you’re not interested in eating. this thing that’s been bothering you has got to be dealt with somehow.
you sit on a hay bale, over in the shade. you bow your head and begin to pray. that verse about confessing our sins and Jesus will forgive you comes to mind. resting on the porch didn’t help, water didn’t help, avoiding the problem didn’t help, but prayer will! we admit to Jesus what we did and ask him to forgive us. something very special happens. that darkness goes away, the peace you lost is now back! there’s a happiness now, and the darkness is gone! that’s soul rest. ONLY Jesus can do that for us. now we have answered the dinner bell in our soul. Forgiveness has a much better sweetness to it than the water bucket ever did! we head for the house to feed our bodies, but we have already feasted on the mercies of God, while still in the barn. Forgiveness is rest for the soul! It brings a happiness and a joy with it, that leaves us laughing under the water spout. Sin brings dark changes to us. There is no joy or happiness.
we don’t have to live in the country or to be working a farm, to sin. Sin attacks everybody everyplace. no matter what our troubling sin may be, the results are always the same and the answer will always be the same. We are either drinking from the spout of God’s forgiveness, or we’re still spitting out the salty brine of our heavy-laden burdens. It’s a choice!