The Work and the Worry

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| Resting in Our Weakness series |

• Yoked with Jesus
• The Work and the Worry
• Resting in Our Salvation

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Last week we took a break from our series on rest for a special post for Mother’s Day. This week I’d like to pick up with the second in our series on Resting in Our Weakness.

Humility vs. Meekness

“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.” (Matt 11:29) His example of gentleness and humility are the prerequisites that enable us to be at rest. In the first post of this series we explored the first of these virtues, gentleness (meekness), and saw how meekness allows us to receive His yoke so we can follow Him. This week let’s explore humility to see what connection it has to rest.

The second word ‘humble’ comes from the Greek word ‘tapeinos’. This word describes “the person who depends on the Lord rather than self”. At first glance, this seems similar to our discussion of ‘meek’ in the first week. However, if I can summarize the difference: to be meek is to be submissive to the Father’s will, to be humble is to be reliant on the Father’s power. But, how does being reliant on God’s power enable our rest?

The Work and the Worry

We know that we are called to do what we see Him doing and say what we hear Him saying. But, how can we rest while we are hard at work doing His will? Our passage in Matthew 11 makes clear that His promise is to provide “rest for our souls”. We can be at rest in our souls while we are active in our bodies. Working hard at something and seeing the progress can even be fun. Ecclesiastes actually says that work is a gift from God, “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God,” (Ecclesiastes 2:24) However, it doesn’t always feel like this, particularly because work can often bring with it stress. But Solomon doesn’t say simply that work is good, but that finding enjoyment in work is good.

So, how can we enjoy our work? Solomon goes on to say, “apart from Him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” (Ecclesiastes 2:25). We cannot enjoy our work without God’s help. God takes on the unhealthy and unenjoyable part of work – the burden. The work itself is fun; it’s the stress, the anxiety, and the worry that steals our joy in it. God is the one who’s responsible for making our work actually produce something meaningful, not us. This is His weight to carry. Consider what Paul said regarding God’s power to make his work effective, “… as God assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” (1 Corinthians 3:5-6) Solomon explains it this way in Psalms, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” (Psalms 127:1-2) When we rely on His power to make our efforts effective then we can release this ‘anxious toil’ that wears on our soul with worry and instead ‘find enjoyment in our toil’ as we allow our ‘soul to rest’.

Accepting Our Weakness

But, what does this look like? Let’s look at the battle the Israelites had with Amalek in the wilderness. This was the battle where “whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.” (Exodus 17:11) Now, holding a staff in the air might get tiring (as it did for Moses), and if you do it for long enough then you might need some help (as Moses did), but it’s hard to say it’s a stressful job. Don’t get me wrong; Moses could have gotten stressed about whether or not Israel was going to win the battle and maybe worried about whether he was holding the staff just right. But, at the end of the day, it’s not the way he held the staff that made Israel successful. What’s more, how well the Israelites fought in battle didn’t determine their success either. It was God’s power on their efforts that made them effective. God still allowed Moses and the soldiers to play a part, but He was clearly the one who caused success.

In the first post of this series, I mentioned how meekness wasn’t exactly a desirable virtue.  This week’s virtue, humility, isn’t a noticeable improvement.  Both carry a theme of weakness, and, quite simply, weakness isn’t all that appealing.  However, it is only in accepting our weakness that we can truly find rest. In meekness, we rely on His direction rather than our own planning so that we find ourselves in His presence more, and it’s in His presence where He says, “I will give you rest” (see Make Room to Be Refreshed).  In humility, we rely on His power rather than our own so that we don’t add worry to the work He asks us to do, and we are able to find “rest for our souls” in the midst of it.

As we finish out this series on rest next week, I’m excited to share with you what God showed me about how Christ’s promise of an ‘easy yoke’ and a ‘light burden’ carries an even deeper meaning. It helped me see the gift of salvation in a whole new light!