The weeks leading up to a race are designed for rest. I do not rest well. I am a doer. I am hardwired to be busy. Working is my mantra. If I am “doing” then I am obviously contributing, whether that be contributing to a person, group, ministry, community, purpose, or cause. It is in the “doing” that I tend to root my value. I am bent to define my worthiness based on my productivity. This natural bent is not what God has designed for His children. From the very beginning He created rest. Rest was created for mankind, not the other way around. So why is it that rest is such a struggle for me? If rest was created for me and for my good, why do I fight against rest?

There are many reasons for this struggle that could be a topic for another day. I have “quirks” (lots of them), each of which has the potential to dictate that I approach my callings with a sense of self-reliance. What has struck me through a series of sermons, pod casts, TED talks, and conversations recently is that the framework through which I view rest has been skewed. In so many areas of my life – as a wife, mother, marathon runner, volunteer, friend, neighbor, and health coach – I have looked at my ability to work hard as a means of EARNING rest. I have believed the narrative that when my work is done and done well then I will have earned the right to rest. However, the Lord has gently turned this works-based belief system on its head for me. He has enlightened me through a host of people and experiences to know that He created rest SO THAT I can work. He has called me to rest in Him as a means of preparing, equipping, and training me for the work that He has arranged in advance for me to do.

He does not require me to earn my way into this rest. He has already provided it. He graciously invites me to step into the privilege of His presence and power through the work of the Holy Spirit SO THAT I can rest . . . even as I work. He offers this invitation to save me from myself. He provides this means of grace to prevent my natural drift toward self-reliance. Tell me what to do, and I will do it. Show me the work, and I will do it. This “I’ve got this” attitude is nothing but prideful humility on one end of the spectrum or prideful self-righteousness on the other end of the spectrum. I have both dispositions depending on the setting and context. Regardless, each disposition is rooted in a sense of pride – one eventually realizes I am inadequate for the task at hand and leaves me sulking, and the other muddies my motivation and strips my work of genuine servant-hearted action. But God in His kindness does not leave me to be a pendulum swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other as I go about my work. He invites me into His Sabbath rest!

This week of resting prior to the Boston Marathon has been a means of God training me to orient my heart toward Him in the moment-to-moment happenings of my day. Through the gentle prodding of the Holy Spirit, He is training me to embrace the ordinary while simultaneously praying for and expecting God to do the extraordinary. He has promised that when I remain faithful in the small, mundane, repetitive, and mindless tasks that are present in all of our lives, He will bless us with the opportunity to see Him at work. He will give us eyes to see Him at work in the ordinary and in the everyday. He rescues me from myself. He takes me out of my natural tendency to swing between prideful humility and prideful self-righteousness and He places me in a posture of true gratitude. And it is in this posture of gratitude that my heart is tuned to sing His praise, see His wondrous works, declare Him to the masses, and shout His glory from the hilltops. May we grow in our ability to rest in Him!