Wresting Rest from the Rest of it All
The sun is beginning to set, yet the battle continues to rage on. You see your comrades brandish their bloodied swords, belaying the enemy's advances. It seems to be a stalemate, with both forces suffering the effects of fatigue and diminished visibility as twilight quickly begins to overtake the valley.
You have been warring for what seems like an eternity, even though the battle really only started at dawn. Nonetheless, your whole body aches. Cuts, contusions and blisters pock your body despite the robust body armour weighing you down like a terrestrial anchor. A weary foe advances towards you, hoping that the remnants of his strength will overpower the little energy you have left. You groan on the inside as he approaches, knowing that if you don't push yourself to the very edge, you will die—nonetheless, you make no indication of this on the outside, lest your enemy notices and is encouraged by your weakness. Conserving your strength, you prepare for the assault, and just as soon as the opposing warrior raises his sword over his head, you hear two different horns—one coming from each side of the battlefield. Both are understood as signals for retreat.
Your swords clang upon his impact, and you know by the force of this blow that your enemy really had no intention of fighting further. His weapon being deflected, he takes a step backwards, raising the steel blade to a defensive position as slowly, he takes a few steps backward. Relieved by this change in events, you yourself begin to take a couple of backward steps before turning around to begin the arduous trudge to the where the army is camped, just over those hills to the east.
It's been a long day. You're exhausted and the only thing that you want to do when you get to the camp is take off this heavy plate armour and collapse onto your bed. The washbasin can wait til the morning. Having arrived, you disrobe and crumple into your bed, falling asleep even before your head comes to rest on the matress.
But what if? What if there were no guards, no sentries, no watch towers to keep a look out for approaching enemies? What if all of your comrades were mercenaries, willing to turn the instant that the opposite side made an offer that outbid your side's agreement? What if there was no one around you that you oculd trust to keep you safe as you recouperated from the day's long battle?
You probably wouldn't sleep very well. You probably wouldn't get much rest. You probably would spent the night in a state of half-sleep,as you kept your guard up & kept your senses alert to the slightest hint of anything approaching your "resting" self.
Of course, you probably would die in the next day's onslaught due to fatigue & demoralisation, so why bother trying to keep yourself safe during the night when you're pretty sure that you're gong to die the next day because of it? Vigilence, perhaps. A sense of self-preservation that hopes to defy the inevitable because maybe, just maybe you can beat those insurmountable odds and live an extra day.
Every living thing needs rest, even if we try to overlook this necessity in life. Plants average 12 hours of rest from their labours each day. Humans require an average of eight hours of sleep every night to "recharge" sufficiently for the next day's challenges. Bears, frogs, insects, reptiles and other select members of Animalia all go into hibernation for about a third of the year (bears technically engage in torpour, but that's not really the important part, now is it?). The human heart is at rest more often than it is beating. Even God Himself rested on day number seven.
But what happens when we cannot find rest? Each of us, for certain, can accommodate to certain stressors and demands upon the physical body, but ultimately, we fall asleep whether we want to or not. This takes care of the physical requirements of rest; but what about all t hose other facets of human existence? What about social rest? Emotional rest? Mental rest? Spiritual rest? These things (unfortunately) do not resolve themselves through sleep or another unescapable physiological process: we can push these things aside for pretty much as long as we want to. However, ignoring these fatigues does not resolve the defecits.
What's in a Sleeping Bag?
I'd like to assume that every animal that is capable has some form of refuge, some form of hiding place yto which it can let its guard down and rest. Humans, I think, are a bit more complex, though. It isn't really a place that humans need to get to; it's a state of mind. We need to feel safe despite the surroundings. We need to feel protected regardless of what goes on around us. I could be six inches away from a furioius grizzly bear and feel perfectly safe—provided that there was a steel cage between us. I could be sitting right next to a venting tank filled with 60 pounds of liquified petroleum gas while playing with a lighter, provided that that venting propane is being shunted through a regulated control valve and directed towards a burner in my barbecue. I could feel delightfully at ease while scaling an 80 foot cliff with jagged rocks baring their sharp edges at the base taunting me, were I to fall, as long as I had tethered myself to a safety rope as part of my ascent procedures. Mind you, I could be sitting at home, buried in my sleeping bag nice and cozy warm, all the while being scared crapless because I was certain that the boogieman was going to eat me.
We all have "places" that we find rest. For some of us, we find rest in large groups of people who all know our names & welcome us by name. For others, rest is found by a campfire in the middle of the woods. It could be found on the highways as you weave in and out of the speeding vehicles. One could even find rest at a casino, at a bar, at church, in a café, with family, with friends, with strangers, with a book. Perhaps you're one of those people who finds rest in doing stuff—hobbies, sports, activities, etc. Each of us has an escape. Each of us also probably has more than one.
Building Forts
It would be sweet if we, as Christians, could always model ourselves after Biblical precepts, wouldn't it? I mean, David says that he finds his refuge in the Lord. Jesus admonishes us to come to Him to get rest, all the while imploring us to abide in Him so that we may be one with eachother in Him as He is one with the Father. Oh, to be perfect... It would be nice.
I seem to find myself usually getting into the situation where life gets in the way of this "taking refuge" in God. Busyness and obligation often eat up my daily time until I have nothing left—not even enough time to devote to more than 6 hours of sleep per night. Teaching in Thailand is very much this way, and to be honest, I hate it. I work too much. I have so much work to get accomplished on a daily basis that my ability to commune with God—much less anyone else—is essentially a pipe-dream. Not really a good place to be in especially when you're supposed to be doing ministry work, eh? So, I do what I can—I replace my ideal place of refuge with a crappy substitute. Since I know that I don't have the time to spend with God, I default to me carnal desires—finding rest in accomplishment & excellence (believe you me, this is a bad combination to have: too much work + finding "rest" in doing a good job only ends up with you doing more than too much work, if that were even possible. Unfortunately, I am myself and I can't see beyond my own perspective as to what is required and as to what is mere "excellence" striving). Believe you me, this substitute works about as well as replacing the cream cheese in cheesecake with axel grease. However, it's only after you've gone through the fire that you realise how much the substitute sucks in comparison—while you're in the midst, you cannot even begin to appreciate how feeble your scarecrow guard is against any lurking enemies while you sleep.
So what about guards? What about community? What about being one with others, striving towards the goal of community with Him? It takes work. It takes trust; it takes faith in the others. Community is essential in labour-intensive ministry, I am finding.
But what happens when you do not see your fellow soldiers? What happens when you feel alone & deserted precisely because you're so heavily engaged in the battle? I don't know. Maybe it's a lie. Maybe it's misinformation fed by agents of the enemy precisely formulated to keep community from congealing.
The more & more that I think about it, the more & more I begin to realise that community doesn't happen by accident. Forts & garrisons don't self-assemble; they do not spring up out of the ground ready to go. No, they require foresight, planning and purposive striving—sapping what little strength each individual has left in the hope that the meagre investment will produce bountious returns.
But how does it start? Well, you gotta let your guard down. You've got to let others be the sentries, be the watchmen, be the ones armour-clad. You need to let go of your perosnal safety, to trust in the ability of others to do this for you, to lie there, vulnerable and naked. If you don't, you're going to die in the battle tomorrow; no one can keep the vigil and find rest at the same time.
And what about finding rest in God? Same deal. Are you willing to let go of what you think is important and necessary just so that you can spend enough time to be with Him to find the rest that He's wanting to give? Do you trust Him enough to act as a sufficient guard, allowing you to complete the tasks that He has assigned for you...
Or would you rather lie on the ground in a state of fitful half-sleep, jumping to the "ready" as soon as you perceived anything that closely resembled an offensive advance, essentially guaranteeing your slaughter in the next day's tour de force?
It's up to you: sleep, or die trying.
