Peace Comes from Quieting the Inner Storm
Because of Freedom in Christ contacts, I often have the privilege of leading prayer calls. And following the advice from Tim Keller in his book Prayer, I always start the calls with a Psalm. It makes a good transition into prayer and gets people settled into contemplation and adoration.
Several weeks ago, my wife was pretty frazzled. She generally doesn’t get into this state, but that day was special for some reason. I started our prayer call with Psalm 23 and a wonderful peace fell upon her that she immediately felt and embraced. It was so refreshing to her that she has commented several times about it. God worked in her soul. It was my wife receiving a fresh and correct perspective of God and the world as they really are.
Psalm 23 (ESV) starts off with the “The LORD is my shepherd.” God’s own great and majestic, personal name and a claim to our intimate relationship with Him are tied together. How wonderful! The same two items are reversed but paired in the Lord’s Prayer as well. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” Matthew 6:9 ESV.
The key is always perspective. When we see the issues of life without noticing God, it is pretty crazy. But if we see the same issues with God in perspective, it can really change the way we feel. So, we see David continue with the way to a restored soul, what he and we all need.
We start the process of quieting our souls by gaining God’s perspective. That is why Jesus taught us to pray this way. But of course, there is more. We find later in Matthew that Jesus says to us:
“Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” Matthew 11:28-30 ESV.
On close inspection, we see that there are actually two references to rest. The first is what my wife felt when she came into God’s presence. It was a rest she had lost that day. But notice that the second reference to rest comes behind several instructions. It seems, this (perhaps) deeper soul rest is contingent upon our actions. What are these? I will spell out three actions.
1. To lay down our load and pick up Jesus’ yoke.
2. To learn Jesus’ ways, His lifestyle.
3. To understand and embrace the character of God in our lives.
First off, it seems trivial to just lay down our loads, but this is not the case. We may have shaped our whole lives around our heavy load. I’m reminded of Jesus’ question to the lame man in John 5:6. There, Jesus asks if the man wants to get healed. This man’s whole life was shaped around his disability. It was very much a part of how he thought of himself. Would he give it up? Would he accept a new, better identity?
Taking Jesus’ load will feel funny at first since we have been misshapen by our old load. But, after some time of obvious adjustment, we will feel a sense of peace start to settle in. Jesus’ load is what we were created to carry.
Second, learning Jesus’ ways is a rich discussion. But perhaps I can simplify by just commenting on Jesus’ reliance and trust in His Father. When we start to learn to trust God and give up our supposed control, we will move toward rest.
Finally, we can learn the real character of God and grow further in rest. In this passage, Jesus remarkably identifies Himself as lowly and humble. Working through our misunderstanding of God is a critical part of having peace with God. I sometimes say it this way: “You can’t love someone you hate.” It is a bit strong, perhaps. But the idea is that if for some reason we “hate” God, we have not understood Him and what He is about. Once we settle this, we will move forward. And so, we arrive at the deep soul rest Jesus promised us. In my experience, it is progressive. There is always deeper rest beyond my current experience. Keep going!!