We Christians, particularly us Evangelical Christians, are not always very good at rest. I’ve had several conversations over recent weeks with a range of different people that all landed on this point. Many of us just aren’t good at rest.

I am, to be clear, not suggesting here that we’re all immune to laziness. But many of us either feel bad when we are not busy or we think we’re doing something wrong by taking time off and actually enjoying ourselves. Unless we are specifically busy doing something overtly Christian – be it, praying, evangelism or some other worthy endeavour – we are necessarily being lazy.

I remember many years ago being a church that was (on our view) not particularly active. I was quite ill and I am sure that our being there was all part of the Lord seeking to give us rest. Were it a church chocabloc with activities, it is likely I would have felt obligated – even though absolutely unable – to get fully involved in them. As it happened, for good or ill, such things were not there to be done. But I kicked against it anyway because rather than recognise the Lord may be pleased to have given us some rest so that I could recover, I just saw the stuff that sh/could be done and with little thought about my ability to actually do it, felt guilty that I was doing none of it.

We are often quite bad at seeing the Lord’s hand in things. At least, at the time. Rather than see what the Lord may have been helpfully doing for me, I saw only the things I felt I ought to be doing. I think I can see what the Lord was doing now, but hindsight isn’t 20/20 (contrary to popular opinion) but it’s definitely clearer.

Somewhere along the line I think we managed to skip over Jesus’ own words: ‘my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’. Jesus literally invites us to himself for rest yet we consistently seem unwilling to take him up on it. He invites us to enjoy him and we consistently find ways to work. That isn’t to say he has no work for us to do, but it is to say we don’t serve him so that he will eventually give us rest. Rather, we come to him for rest and then serve out of that rest and in full knowledge of the freedom from sin, death and ineffective efforts to please God through works-righteousness.

When we come to Jesus, he doesn’t say work for me and I’ll give you what you need. He gives us what we need and then say do what you want! He gives us his Holy Spirit to change our hearts, will and desires, to empower us to do whatever he calls us to do, to lead us in the good works he has prepared for us to walk in. But we are not judged on our performance in these things, we serve out of the freedom of full acceptance, knowing we have been adopted fully into Christ’s sonship and stand to inherit all that belongs to him because of him.

That frees us to serve, but also frees us to rest. In fact, it frees us to love God and do what we want, knowing that we will, indeed, accomplish all that God would have for us to do. Not in our own strength, of course, but in the power of the Spirit at work in us. We can serve, but we can also rest, to the glory of God.

I sense we need to become a little better at the resting bit.