TRYING TO REST
Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest.
Hebrews 4:11
We do not labor to rest. That is a contradiction. We labor to enter into rest, we make it our resolute purpose, we go about it in dead earnest. But when we have ceased from our works and entered, then we rest. We make an effort to reach a vacation spot but after we arrive we rest. The Saviour invites us to His rest, and we are not to live in a tense strain, holding on to it for dear life for fear “it” will slip from us. We do not keep Him, He keeps us. We are His guest, not His host, we sit at His table and we need never go away.
The rest of the Christian is not a pose of faith rigidly fixed and maintained. It is not something we screw ourselves up to, it is the very opposite of all strenuous effort. We labor to enter in, we earnestly commit all in a positive, definite, businesslike way. Then the responsibility is His to keep what we have committed; we have simply to abide. Like some vacationists, we exhaust ourselves trying to rest! Let go and let God!