05/23/10 Recreation or “Wrecreation.”

Asa was the great-grandson of King Solomon and ruled the Kingdom of Judah for a long time (911-870 BC). For the first thirty five years of his reign, he served the Lord wholeheartedly and “did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord.” (II Chron. 14:2) Later in this 14th chapter we are told that “Asa’s heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life (verse 17). (This was true only until the end of his reign at which time he deviated from the straight and narrow-see the 16th chapter). His people also swore allegiance to the Lord wholeheartedly and this can directly be attributed to Asa’s fine example (see verses 8-15). The fifteenth verse ends with the statement that because the King and His people wholeheartedly served the Lord, He “gave them rest on every side.” The same could also be said of Abijah, Asa’s father and Jehoshaphat, Asa’s son as well as a few others. Even though all these Kings including Asa had their anxious moments when they had to face enemies, their reigns were generally characterized by piety and triumph over their enemies so that they lived for the most part in peace and prosperity and their borders were never breached in their lifetimes (i.e. the people and the land had REST).

This very abbreviated description of the meaning of “rest” for the people of Israel equates “rest” with the cessation of war and the feeling of confidence in the God who was protecting them. Underlying this was their covenant relationship with the Lord whom they served wholeheartedly. Other Kings served the Lord “halfheartedly” (e.g. II Chron. 25:1ff) or not at all (the worst was Manasseh, II Kings 21:1-18), and they did not fare so well. With this Old Testament background, we move to the New Testament where Jesus promises “rest” to his followers (Matthew 11:28-30), but the meaning of rest here takes on a more spiritual meaning. Jesus’ promise of rest needs to be understood within his challenge to us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him (see Matthew 16:24). What amazes me about God’s spiritual athletes (we can read about them in the stories of the contemporary persecuted church where our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world especially in China and Muslim controlled areas are being beaten and murdered) find peace and “rest” all their suffering notwithstanding. This is a quantum leap from the lot of almost all the Old Testament saints who were promised triumph over their enemies, peace, and rest-the root cause of adherents to “the prosperity gospel) if they wholeheartedly followed the Lord. (This is why Job and Jeremiah (see Job 7 and Jeremiah 15:15ff and 20:7-18) complained bitterly to the Lord when they had to take a lot of heat). But Paul “rested” in Jesus’ reassurance when he suffered the trauma of being arrested and threatened in Jerusalem (Acts 22:11); and earlier Paul and Silas sang hymns in a Philippian dungeon (Acts 16:25).

But I want to take this one step further. What about you and me when we strive to do our best for the Master and yet find ourselves straining at the bit to keep our heads above water and feel broken and even abandoned at times. Does Jesus’ promise of rest cover our misery. When we are “whistling in the dark” about his grace being sufficient for us, why is it that the Lord seems so far from helping us in all our labors. I don’t know about you, but I even complained to the Lord that all his talk about rest hadn’t included me. In time the Lord led me to understand that he did not call us to save the world all by ourselves and that we cannot respond to every challenge and meet every need; there are times when we must find rest and re-creation (the true meaning of recreation) in retreat and quietness (see Isaiah 30:15 KJV) with relative inactivity if we are going to go on serving him “in the joy of the Lord” which is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10) and the basis of our resting in him. The Lord certainly extends us at times but we need always to remember that He is the Solution, the Healer, the Savior and not we ourselves. In short we need to have times of recreation, not “wrecreation.”