defiance

For the perfectionist and self-reliant, choosing to rest is a holy act of defiance. A confession that I am not God. To admit the reality that to cease striving, to be still, is in ensure that God will be exalted among the nations (Psalm 46:10).

When I take on the weight as if it all depends on me, I am trying to place myself in the position of God. I can justify my self-reliance and defiance of the rhythms He’s ordained by saying it’s so God will be exalted, that it’s all “for the Lord”. But it doesn’t change His good design.

A design, that from the very beginning, I was created finite. I wasn’t meant to be infinite. He is God and I am not. 

A design, that from the very beginning, I was created to work and rest. Before the fall. Even exemplified by God Himself, who is perfect and never grows weary, never tires, never faints. If God rests from His work, how much more should I? Finite me. And now in a broken world with entropy and decay. 

So much of the lie of self-reliant driven perfectionism is that I can be like God. I can do it, by myself, and it’ll be better. But God Himself rested from His work! And God Himself has a Helper. God Himself invites us in. Not from a place of weakness of lack. But from a holy place of relationship and joy and beauty. How much more should I, with lack and weakness, invite and lean in with others?

We don’t need more hours in the time. We don’t need more time. There has always been the same amount of time in a day. And it is good.

I don’t need to be in more places at once. The world doesn’t need more than one me. God is the one who is omnipresent.

Some of the longing is ultimately just for a few heaven and new earth… when all will be made right. Some of the longing is for God’s kingdom to be here on earth as it is in heaven… which is good to give our lives for.

But may we work from favor, not for it. Trusting that God’s design and rhythms are good and beautiful and holy. And to live and move and breath and work and rest, ceasing from striving in our own strength and trusting that He cares about the good of others and the glory of His name more than we do.