This morning a line from a prayer of John Baillie arrested my attention:
“Thou made me restless for the rest that is in Thee.”[1]
That my attention was arrested is a telling observation: either because it suggests that I am restless or in need of rest; or that I was made for rest. The latter of these two thoughts is not particularly new to me, although it is not one to which I regularly turn. Nonetheless, in the Book of Hebrews we read:
“Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it… So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; for those who enter God's rest also cease from their labors as God did from His.”[2]
In context, the author of Hebrews is arguing that Christ is greater than Moses, and that His rest is greater than that of either Moses or Joshua. Moreover our author makes a direct connection between rest and the rest of Yahweh Elohim, our Creator, who rested upon the Seventh Day.
Again, as important as this thought and its connection are, neither are new to me (although I am inclined to be forgetful): Do we not regularly conceive of Heaven, Paradise, and/or Eden as containing or offering delights, peace, and yes, rest? Does not the spiritual promise rest: “Gonna lay down my burdens,” as we cross “the river” to the other side? From these allusions, surely rest and relating to God are tightly bound.
Thus, if I desire rest, then it is to be found or experienced in rightly relating to God. However, John Baillie’s prayer indicates that I was made restless, in order that I might find rest in God. Typically I attribute my restlessness to two causes: either I lack sleep and leisure (i.e. Latin: “to be allowed”), or my having drunk deeply from our secular (i.e. Latin: “an indefinitely long time”) culture and its reverence for calendars, schedules, and deadlines. Thus I’m restless because I’m always “watching the clock,” always aware that life is temporal: time moves inexorably forward, waiting for no one. I push, forgoing rest, because at some moment, I will be able to push no more.
In prayer, however, John Baillie indicated that I was made restless: I wonder.
Faithfully,
Stan
[1] John Baillie, A Diary of Private Prayer (New York: Scribner, 1977), p. 21.
[2] Hebrews 4:1, 9-10.