Not a promise, a command

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

I have to admit I am not a receiver. I hate being on the needy end of things. When I come to God, I come for energy and for direction, I don't come for rest. Recently though God has refused to give me anything but rest. I come to Him with questions and problems and ideas and he gives me rest, no answers, no direction, no work. Normally, that wouldn't slow me down terribly because I'd just reach into my own resources and work from there, but lately I've been plumb out of resources. I've had to humble myself and ask for help that I really needed, not help that would have been nice, but help that if it hadn't come I would have been lost. I'm finding it frightening to need other people, to have no back up plan but to ask for help. It's hard not being able to supply my own needs, but at the same time I am finally getting some rest.

I've tended to look at Matthew 11:28-30 as nice promise God made to us, but now I am recognizing that it is a command. There is no qualifier, no pretty please, just the command--"Come unto me." Rest must be far more important than I thought it was, because every effort I am making to come to God, has led me to rest. No work, no direction, no answers, just rest. Instead of the Slough of Despond, I seem to have fallen into the Slough of Hope. Every struggle to get back on the road sinks me deeper, but the deeper I sink the more powerfully I feel the hand holding me up. The more deeply I engage in this rest, the more I discover that I am surrounded by the love of God expressed not merely in His manifest presence, but in His presence in people. The more I rest and accept the love of God as He expresses it through His servants, the more I see how bountiful and beautiful is the work of God in mankind. I am hopeful that as I grow in my appreciation of the work of God in others I will begin to see and value the work of God in me. Maybe it's just trading Bunyan in for Merton, but whatever it is I'll never again undervalue the blessings of obeying the command to come and receive God's rest.