August 21, 2005

Series - If You Can't Stand the Heat - 4

Consider the average day of a typical middle-class family. The family rises at 6:00AM. Everyone fends for themselves for breakfast. Dad heads out at 6:45 to beat the 7:00 traffic. His normal commute on a good day is 45 minutes. Mom and the two children are out the door by 7:15. Usually someone is a little cranky. Mom drops her sons off at grade school by 7:40. 20 minutes later she arrives at her workplace.

At 3:30 PM, the children are done with school and enter an after-school program. Mom skips lunch so she can rush out of the office to pick the kids up by 5:00. She arrives home at 5:30. Fifteen minutes later one son has baseball practice. She gets both kids in the car and rushes to make it to the practice field on time. The other son has a game at 8:00. She calls her husband on the cell phone while taking her son to baseball practice to make sure he can grab the second child at the field and get him to his game by 7:30.

Dad leaves the office at 6:00 PM, unsuccessful in his efforts to make it through his to-do list. Traffic is now an issue. The 45 minute commute stretches into an hour and 15. He arrives at the practice field at 7:15 with all the signs of road stress. He kisses his wife, waves to his son in center field, whooshes the second son into his SUV (a mere $700 a month), and heads to the game field about 15 minutes away. Son #1 finishes practice at 7:30, and he and Mom head for home. On the way they stop at Tim Horton’s for dinner. They arrive home at 8:00. The boy turns to the video games while Mom checks e-mail.

Meantime, the baseball game gets started a little late and doesn’t end until 9:45. Dad is still in his business casual clothes, but he does appreciate the forced break to watch his son play ball. On their way home they make a quick stop at the McDonald’s drive-in window. They arrive home at 10:30, and son #2 reveals that he hasn’t studied for the history test for tomorrow!

After 45 minutes of shoving facts into her son’s short-term memory while he inhales a McDonald’s “Happy” meal, Mom sends him to bed. It is now 11:15. Time for bed. Mom and Dad flop into bed dead tired. They watch a little TV; exchange a few words – mostly action items for the next day – and then lights go out. Mom falls asleep as soon as the lights are out. Dad, on the other hand, doesn’t. He lies there thinking about all the things that must be done. He knows he needs sleep, so he gets up and swallows a sleeping pill. It bothers him, but he doesn’t see any alternative. Tomorrow promises more of the same. (From Randy Frazee, “Making Room for Life”)

Things seem a little harried and out of hand, but the following assumptions keep the family from making any changes: Everyone lives this way. This is a privileged life that can only be maintained with hard work and discretionary money. Things will even out soon. And this is just a temporary season of busyness. Does your life look anything like this?? Are you just running out of time? Have things just become too crazy? Can’t stand the heat of time pressures?

80 million people in North America suffer from insomnia. That means 1/3 of us are dozing off at work, napping through class, or sleeping at the wheel. 1500 road deaths per year are blamed on heavy-eyed truckers. 30 tons of aspirins, sleeping pills, and tranquilizers are consumed every day! Our bodies are tired. Why are we so tired? We talked about the #1 reason last week: the stress of work. #2? Schedules overcrowded with organized evening activities.

So we are tired! If we invited an alien to earth to solve this problem for us, he would quickly suggest a simple solution: everybody go to sleep! We would laugh at him. He just doesn’t understand the way we live, we would say. We work hard and we play hard. To us, busyness is next to godliness. We idolize Thomas Edison, who claimed he could live on 15 minute naps. Somehow we forget to mention Albert Einstein, who averaged 11 hours of sleep a night! In 1910, we slept 9 hours a night; today we sleep 7 and are proud of it. And we are tired because of it. Our minds are tired. Our bodies are tired. And worse, our souls are tired.

Only one other living creature has as much trouble resting as we do. Not dogs. They doze. Not bears. They hibernate. Cats take catnaps. Sloths sleep 20 hours a day! Most animals know how to rest. Except one: sheep. Sheep can’t sleep. For sheep to sleep, everything must be right. No predators. No tension in the flock. No bugs. No hunger. Everything has to be just so. Unfortunately, sheep cannot find safe pasture, nor can they spray insecticide, deal with frictions, or find food. They need help! They need a shepherd to “lead them” and help them “lie down in green pastures.” Without a shepherd, they can’t rest.

Without a shepherd, neither can we. “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters.” (Psalm 23:2) HE makes me. HE leads me. Who is the active one? Who is in charge? The shepherd! He makes it possible for us to get rest. With our eyes on the Shepherd, we will get some sleep. Physically and spiritually.

Look at the blank piece of paper in your bulletin. What do you see? You see a white piece of paper. Now look at the side with a dot. What do you see now? You see the dot, don’t you? Isn’t that our problem? We let the dark marks eclipse the white space. We see the waves of water rather than our Savior walking through them. We focus on our paltry provisions rather than on the One who can feed 5000 hungry people. We concentrate on all the busy, time-consuming things we think we have to do, instead of the important, healthy rest for our soul that we don’t do. We concentrate on the dark Fridays of crucifixion and miss the bright Sundays of resurrection. Change your focus and relax! While you’re at it, change your schedule and relax!

A woman named Mary met a friend at a café. When Mary stepped out of her car, she saw her friend waving her over. Mary thought she was saying something, but she couldn’t hear a word. A jack-hammer was pounding pavement a few feet away. She walked toward her friend, who was actually just saying hello, and the two entered the restaurant. When it came time to leave, Mary couldn’t find her keys. She looked in her purse, on the floor, in her friend’s car. Finally when she went to her car, there they were. Not only were the keys in the ignition, the car was running! It had been running the entire time she and her friend were in the café.

Mary blamed it on the noise. “Everything was so loud, I forgot to turn it off.” The world gets that way, doesn’t it? Life can get so loud we forget to shut it down. That’s why God made a big deal about rest when He gave us the Ten Commandments! He made it very clear that He wanted us to set aside time to rest our bodies and minds, and even more importantly, our souls!

I think we all know in theory that rest is important for us. I think we know we need to simplify our schedules. But we still object. And I am the worst! “But who will run the church?” “Who will run the store?” “The office?” “What about my grades?” “The kids NEED to be in the activities they are in – it is good for them and then I’m being a good parent!” “How can one be in soccer and not the other?” “I need to volunteer.” “I need to help the church!”

Do we NEED to do all these things? Is the busyness and stress they all put into our life worth it? Are you always out of time? Could there be alternatives? Could we limit the number of organized activities we do? Like organized sports and music lessons? Could families get together in our own neighbourhoods instead of commuting to organized activities every night of the week? Could we leave work at work? Could we encourage our children to have their homework done by dinner time to leave some relaxing family time in the evening for devotion and recreation together? Could we lessen our expectations on ourselves and our children to be the best and get the most out of life all the time?

God says: I worked for six days, then rested. You need to, too. If creation didn’t crash when I rested, it won’t crash when you do! Friends, repeat these words after me: IT IS NOT MY JOB TO RUN THE WORLD. It is God’s job. And He is better at it. And also, He promises rest to us, even after we have not listened to Him and run ourselves ragged. Rest for our bodies, yes. But even more so, rest for our souls, relief from the weary spiritual baggage we haul around.

Jesus said, “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 us to be healthy, we must rest. Slow down, and God will heal you. He will bring rest to your mind, your body, and most of all, to your soul. He will forgive you.

Jesus will lead you to green pastures. Green pastures weren’t very common in Judea. The hills around Bethlehem where David kept his flocks were not lush and green. They were dry and rocky. So, to get green pasture, the shepherd had to clear the rocks, tear out the stumps, burn the brush, irrigate the land, and cultivate the pasture. It took a lot of work for the shepherd!

So when the Psalm says: “He makes me lie down in green pastures,” he is saying, “My Shepherd makes me lie down in his finished work!” With his own pierced hands, Jesus created a pasture for our souls. He tore out the thorny underbrush of condemnation. He pried loose the huge boulders of sin. In their place He planted seeds of grace and dug ponds of mercy. He created the perfect pasture of spiritual rest for us with his life, death, and resurrection!

And He invites us to rest there. Can you imagine the satisfaction in the heart of the shepherd when, with work completed, He sees his sheep rest in the tender grass? Can you imagine the satisfaction in the heart of God when we do the same? His pasture is his gift to us! This is not a pasture we have made. And it isn’t a pasture we deserve, either! It is a gift of God! “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” (Eph.2:8).

In a world rocky with human failure, there is a land lush with God’s mercy and forgiveness. Your Shepherd, Jesus, invites you there. He wants you to lie down. Nestle deeply in his Word until you are covered in the tall shoots of his love, and there you will find rest. Amen.

 

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