GodReflection: Is It Well With My Soul?
“You stir us to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” – Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

More often than not when I start to write this blog I encounter concepts “above my pay scale.” Certainly, today is such a day.

Why would my soul require rest?

It’s somewhat easier to understand that my body demands rest. Seldom does a day pass on this life walk without a shout-out from my muscles and bones for a break.

When I sat down to write it didn’t take long to brainstorm a list of activities that drain bodily energy. You wouldn’t have to think long to add to my list.

In broad strokes restorative rest is required to combat exhaustion from work, school, travel, recreational sports, and childcare. Then, there are the crisis times provoked by unusual health issues. Those occasions demand prolonged rest.

That’s my physical body. However, since my soul is me wouldn’t it be fair to conclude that all of the wear, tear and exertion from life results also in soul exhaustion? It is those times when the very core of my being feels too tired to move. It’s a tiredness that comes from within.

In simplest of terms, I need rest when I am tired. I need rest to combat exhaustion. I have a bed and a chair for my body but where can my soul turn for rest?

The Bible begins with a Song of Creation. Seven times as the hand of God crafted our world the Creator sang out It was good.

Then we read: By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done (Genesis 2:2-3).

Somehow, I doubt the Eternal Perfect God rested because He had exerted energy and was tired. The good He saw as He looked at the whole of creation delighted Him. Is it possible that God whose very nature is good, sat back and rested in Holy Goodness?

At the end of His work God purposefully blessed a day and made it holy. It was a day He would ask his people to observed as holy. His people would need restorative rest found only in Holy Goodness.

It occurs to me I may have missed the obvious. Perhaps the first place my soul should turn for rest needs to be His Holy Goodness. What would that look like for me?

Is there a way in which I might frame each day as a worshipful rehearsal of God’s goodness? I think of a couple of Old Testament citations.

In Psalms 116, King David cries out to God, I was overcome by trouble and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the Lord: “O Lord Save me!”

What I find of interest is the place where his soul was revived: Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you. David reflected upon the occasions when it was obvious God had been good to him. In the good gifted by God David found rest.
When my soul is bone-tired might I find refreshment by doing as did David and find restoration in the rehearsal of all the times God brought good into my life?

Of all the good Holy God has gushed out upon me, none exceeds His greatest gift of Jesus The Christ and the protection of His Spirit, given to lead my soul to its ultimate good—eternal rest in the presence of God’s goodness.

Not a bad place to find soul rest, don’t you think?

Stay tuned.

Dr. Gary J. Sorrells
A GodReflection: My Soul Rests in Good.

Gary@Godreflection.org
http://www.GodReflection.org
http://www.MakeYourVisionGoViral.com