5 Steps to Rest for Your Soul
Jesus wants to give you rest for your soul. He wants your heart to be alive and at peace. He cares about your inner life just as much as your outer life. He sees and knows very well everything that takes place in your mind and emotions.
Consider what He says in Matthew 11:28-30:
“Come to Me, all you who labor (weary from labor in your soul) and are heavy laden (burdened and weighed down with cares), and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle (meek) and lowly in heart (humble), and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
It’s interesting that Jesus connects humility and meekness with having an inner life that is at rest and unburdened. Sometimes we, unknowingly, operate in arrogance by trying to manage our inner lives without God. This is a path to a broken burned out soul. Here’s what it can look like:
It starts with wrongly believing that we can take care of our issues and our circumstances ourselves. As a result we take matters into our own hands. In doing so we trust ourselves above the Lord. The Lord allows us to try to handle things on our own, knowing that it will ultimately break us and bring us back to Him. Next, we become extremely weary and burdened because we expend an incredible amount of internal energy managing appearances, maneuvering people, and manipulating our circumstances. When we live like this we ultimately end up broken and burned out on the inside. As a result, we choose diversions and distractions to try to get our mind off of our inner turmoil and traffic. This is where digital addictions, binge watching, food addictions, and all sorts of entanglements grip us leaving us bound and when it’s all over, still deeply burdened.
Thank God there is a way out. The scriptures are clear that there is rest for our souls if we will come to Jesus. The fact that He calls the weary and heavy laden to Himself tells us they hadn’t been with Him. With Him is peace. Here are five steps to rest for your soul.
The Path to a Restful Soul
1) Choose to say no to the diversions and distractions you have built into your life. This may include logging out for a while to set your inner life right.
2) Become honest with the Lord about the state of your soul, confessing your sin and your incredible need of Him.
3) Cast all your cares upon Him, knowing that He tenderly cares for you. You were not made to carry the cares. He’s waiting for you to give them to Him.
4) Determine to trust Him instead of your own ability to plan, process, or accomplish anything in your life. (Proverbs 3:5)
5) Refuse to pick up the cares again. Allow the “burn” of patiently waiting to work in you until your heart is at rest before Him.
Your souls will ultimately rest in the knowledge of God’s care, ability, and goodness knowing that all His intentions toward you are only good.
Isaiah 30:15 For thus says the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”
Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.
The Lord wants to fill you with peace that is different than the world. In a culture of anxiety and outrage, He wants to give you a heart that isn’t tossed around by the latest scandal. But instead He wants to fill you with peace that isn’t dependent upon circumstances but upon who He is and your trust in Him.