Day 26 - rest

OK, so Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness.

What was He DOING exactly ??

Forty days is a long time.  Forty days ago it was Feb 17th.  What were you doing on Feb 17th - can you remember?  I cant.

Yesterday I spent the day at the Via Wings ladies day conference.  We worshipped, we listened, we had a go at ' being still'  ( that was the theme of the day) we had lunch and chatted and listened some more.  It was a nice day.  And we thought about what it means and what it looks like to ' Be still and know that I am God'.   I cant say that I was particularly moved or inspired or awe-struck.  It was just nice to be able to take the good part of a day to chill with friends in God's presence, knowing that during the day some people would be undergoing life-changing experiences with Him.   Not me this time , but it might have been.  You never know do you?

I came home thinking about the whole ' be still' thing, in the context of the Lent blog and it led to me wonder what Jesus was up to during his forty wilderness days.  As far as we know He was completely on His own.  No phone.  No ipad.  No food.  No work.   Nobody at all except the wild animals and the birds.  Did He sit down on a rock for forty days and wait for God ( and the devil) to speak to Him?  Did He walk for miles and miles each day pondering the word of God?   Did He find Himself something to do - perhaps He built Himself a shelter out of scrub and rocks or composed poetry in His head or wrote songs?    Forty days is an awful long time to do nothing.

When was the last time you did nothing?   I mean apart from being asleep....   when was the last time you sat in a chair in complete silence and listened to your own heartbeat?   Maybe you are very good at doing that.  Im rubbish at it.   If Im sitting still ( which I do from time to time) then there is always music playing or the telly on or something.   If I'm outside walking the dogs Im pretty much always either scouting for photos to take or searching for firewood or just trying to keep my dogs from wandering or chasing other dogs.   I sometimes consider time in the car as my ' alone time'.  And of course I am alone then, but Im still busy doing something.  Namely driving.    I find it almost impossible to be still.  Completely.  Mentally and physically.    I think the only place where I came close to being still is at the beach.  There is something about the sea which I find utterly liberating.  I used to live beside the sea and spent many a happy hour doing nothing much at all whilst wandering the shores.  But for the past 17 years Ive been pretty much landlocked.  And not still.

I think it is interesting that the temptation of Jesus comes just before He starts His public ministry.  Traditionally people think about it in terms of Satan coming to Him to divert Him from the path and Jesus redeeming the sin of Adam ( who succumbed to the lust of the eyes the lust of the flesh and the pride of life).   But today I saw it in a different light.  Jesus had been working as a carpenter for, probably, the past 16 or 17 years.   Im sure it was hard physical work.  He was about to embark on a whole new way of life.  Perhaps He needed to rest.  Maybe God, knowing what was coming and the pressures Jesus was going to be under from all sides as He became public property, with no privacy whatsoever,  maybe God told Jesus He needed to do nothing for forty days.   To completely rest.  Recharge the batteries.  Physically and mentally to stop, sit, be still.    Yes, of course Im sure that spiritually it was a time for Jesus to connect with His Father and fight off the temptations and set His face towards His mission.   But physically I wonder if He didnt just need a break.   Forty days of peace and rest and no demands on His time.

God's word is very very clear that we need rest.  We need a Sabbath - a day off - a day to recharge every single week.  We need to sleep.  If we dont, we get ill.  Physically our bodies just cant cope with being constantly on the go.  Our brains implode if we are just constantly bombarding them with work, responsibility, pressure, information, tasks , problems to solve.  I'm sure Jesus as a good Jew kept the Sabbath every week.   But after nearly two decades of hard physical work, and before embarking on His big mission, maybe He needed a more extended period of rest.

Maybe you do too.

Perhaps you need a real, proper, do nothing, sit in the sun type holiday.   Don't feel guilty if you do.
Perhaps you need to take a sabbatical from work and go and do something completely different for a while.  Maybe it's time to retire.   Or perhaps you just need to get to bed at a sensible time every night.

You know who you are  😉