Psalm 23:1-3

David begins the psalm by stating that he lacks nothing with God as his Shepherd (v. 1). Next, David doesn’t say that the Lord will make us prosperous or keep us from hardship. (Later in the psalm, he says that we may have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.) Instead, he tells us that the Shepherd makes us lie down; He leads us to rest. David uses the images of green pastures and quiet waters to depict what that rest is like. Next, he tells us that God uses rest to refresh our souls.
Work is good, and God created us to join Him in His work for the world. However, God also made us specially to participate in Him. As good as work is in its right context, rest is also vital. Even God participated in the Sabbath day of rest after His creation work. The Sabbath day is an important part of the week. So, we should not be surprised that the Shepherd leads us to rest. Indeed, David’s language is even stronger; the Lord, as our Shepherd, makes us lie down and rest. There is a clear implication: if you follow the Shepherd, you will follow Him to a place of rest; if you resist accepting rest, you are resisting the work of your Shepherd!
Our souls need refreshing, especially amid a world that wants to fill us with strife and anxiety. God, our Shepherd, restores our souls, and He does so by leading us to rest.
Here are three important points in light of this rest. First, accepting rest and ceasing our striving can be hard, especially when we are anxious about the realities of day-to-day life – the always-present anxieties exaggerated by pandemics, fires, and floods. This is why knowing that God gives us everything we need is important. That “everything” includes not only our spiritual needs – the restoring of our souls – but also our material needs. God made us as bodily beings and He cares about our physical needs. Consider the manna in the wilderness, or Christ’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. This is a promise to care for us, not a promise of worldly prosperity. When we trust God to provide for everything we need, we can rest even amid worldly uncertainty.
Second, God leads us along a path of righteousness – or as the NIV states, “along right paths.” And does so for the sake of His own Name and glory, not of our wealth, fame, or prosperity. We need to care more about being righteous than being wealthy or comfortable. We follow the Shepherd’s right path to bring glory to the Shepherd’s Name. The path toward righteousness is the path of following the Shepherd. Peter states a similar idea: “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3).
Finally, there is an intimate link between rest and righteousness. Righteousness does not come from our own striving. It cannot be achieved by self-effort any more than our salvation can. Righteousness comes from yielding to the Shepherd and following the Shepherd’s path – including accepting the gift of rest, and allowing the Shepherd to do His soul-restoring work in our lives.
Do you want your soul to be refreshed and restored? Then accept the Shepherd’s leading to times and places of rest. Accept the promise that the Lord will meet your needs. Do you want to grow in righteousness? Then accept the soul-restoring times of rest when you can cease striving to be with your Shepherd delighting in His goodness.

Psalm 3:5-6
“I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side.”
Matthew used to do his best work late at night. With a young family and a demanding career, he found himself often working after his kids and spouse were in bed. He admits that part of him enjoyed the uninterrupted time. No coworkers needed help with their projects. No kids interrupted his train of thought. He got a lot done. Still, the pattern of staying up later and later to do more and more work became a problem.
We discover that Matthew is not alone. Numerous sleep experts have noted with considerable alarm the growing problem of sleep deprivation in our culture (for a sampler, just Google “sleep deprivation”). The demands of a competitive economy increase expectations of personal job performance, including the time we spend on work. All of it takes a significant toll on the amount of sleep we are getting. This brings me to today’s text.
Psalm 3 is a prayer of David from one of the darkest days of his reign as King of Israel. It is remarkable that in the heart of his prayer, David says, “I lie down and sleep.” Frankly, that seems a bit odd to me. Why would David sleep in a crisis? And, even if he needed to sleep, why would that be important enough for him to work into his prayer? Isn’t sleep a mere necessity that gets in the way of our important work and responsibilities?
Evidently, it wasn’t for David.
David reminds us that sleep is an expression of faith. Our biological need for rest is a built-in reminder from our Creator that we are finite beings. We can create the illusion that we are in control of the outcomes of our work. Our culture reinforces that illusion by projecting onto leaders almost godlike expectations. In contrast, a biblical vision of life recognizes the importance of human agency but understands its limitations. In the end, it is the LORD who “sustains” us and our work. So, David got it right. “I will lie down and sleep” is first and foremost an expression of faith in the God who is at work in all of our work.
Further, David reminds us that sleep is an expression of resistance. Fear drives much of our contemporary sleeplessness. Fear of failure. Fear of looking bad. Fear of disappointing others. Fear of losing our role. The list goes on. David had much to fear. His son, Absalom, had successfully engineered a political coup. David’s life was literally on the line. In that context, his choice to sleep is not only an act of faith in God but also an act of resistance to the fear that resulted from his circumstances. My natural response to fear is to work harder. This psalm, like God’s Sabbath command, reminds me that rest is as important an act of resistance to fear as is work.
Finally, David reminds us that sleep is God’s means for the renewal of our work. “I wake again, for the LORD sustains me.” God uses our act of sleep to revitalize us for the work for which we are responsible. We ignore our biological need for sleep at our peril. Not only does sleep deprivation have long-term health effects, but we have all seen its effects on the quality of our work.
Seeing sleep as a discipline that expresses our faith, that resists our fears, and that renews our work, is part of David’s lasting legacy in penning Psalm 3.

We are grateful, God, for Your gift of sleep.
We pray for wisdom to know our limits.
Help us to lay down our responsibilities at the end of our day
and to entrust them into Your care for the night.
Help us to resist the fears of our limitations
and to trust in Your care and providence.
We are grateful that You sustain and renew us and our work.
We give You the glory of our work,
for from You and through You and to You are all things.
Amen.

Luke 11:2-4
If you were an ordinary person in the Greco-Roman world of the first-century A.D. and you wanted help from a god, you had to be sure to address that god in the right way. An exaggerated example of this requirement appears in the Latin novel Metamorphoses by Apuleius. The novel’s protagonist, Lucius, is in a difficult spot, so he decides to pray to the goddess. Not wanting to address her incorrectly, Lucius covers his bases generously, using the following titles: “O, queen of heaven; bountiful Ceres, the primal mother of crops; heavenly Venus; or Phoebus’ sister; dreaded Proserpina of the nocturnal howls . . . defend me now in the uttermost extremes of tribulation . . .” (Metamorphoses 11.2).
The contrast between Lucius’ prayer and that of Jesus in Luke 11 couldn’t be more striking. When asked by one of His disciples to teach them to pray, Jesus began with a simple address: “Father” (v. 2). In Matthew’s Gospel, we find a more detailed address, “Our Father in Heaven.” But even this is modest compared to what we see in Lucius’ prayer.
It’s likely that Jesus was speaking Aramaic when He prayed the prayer. The Aramaic word Jesus used to address God was “Abba.” A transliteration of this word actually shows up in a prayer of Jesus in Mark 14:34, strengthening the case for Jesus’s use of the Aramaic “Abba” in Luke 11.
What did Abba mean? Some biblical scholars claimed that Abba was the word children used for their fathers, like the English words “Papa” or “Daddy.” Many Christians began addressing God as “Daddy.” The problem with this understanding is that it neglects the broader use of Abba among speakers of Aramaic in the time of Jesus. Yes, young children used Abba, but so did grown children, speaking of their fathers with grown-up respect. Thus, the use of Abba conveys both intimacy and respect.
Praying to God as Father had some precedent in Judaism, though no rabbi or spiritual writer addressed God so directly, simply, and personally as Jesus did when He prayed “Father.” How did Jesus come up with such an unusual practice? Jesus’s understanding of God as Father was nurtured by His Jewish upbringing. In the OT, God is seen as the Father of Israel (see Isaiah 63:16). But there is no example in ancient Jewish writings of addressing God simply as “Father.” That was unique to Jesus.
Jesus’s unique use of “Father” surely reflects His unique relationship with God the Father as God’s unique Son. Jesus experienced unprecedented intimacy with His Heavenly Father. Further, He understood that He was uniquely positioned as the Son of God to reveal the Father to others. We see this dramatically in the passage that comes a few paragraphs before Jesus’s prayer in Luke 11. There Jesus said: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will. All things have been handed over to Me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him” (10:21-22).
Jesus is uniquely able to reveal to us who God is: our Father. But His addressing God as Father is not unique to Jesus. Rather, Jesus teaches His disciples – you and I – to address God in the same way He did, as Father. Jesus is inviting us into His experience of intimacy with God. Yet, at the same time, His use of “Father” encourages us to communicate with God in a truly respectful way. Jesus sets us free from any notion that we have to get the words right when we pray to our “Father.” He keeps us from falling into the pagan trap, trying to impress the gods with many lofty words.
By teaching us to pray to God as Father, Jesus summons us into a transformative experience with the God who loves us as a father loves his children (see 1 John 3:1). That’s wonderful, but some people struggle with the notion of God as Father. Because their personal experience of their own father was so abusive, they had a difficult time thinking of or speaking to God as Father.
What these dear folks needed is the healing that comes when we come to know God as the kind of Father Jesus revealed Him to be. Later in the Luke, we find Jesus’s stunning picture of God as Father in the parable of the Prodigal Son (15:11-32). When a son utterly dishonors his father and abandons his family, the father waits for his son to return. When the son comes home, the father doesn’t rebuke or reject him. Rather, the father runs to embrace his son, forgiving him and restoring him into the family.
When we pray to God as Father, therefore, we’re praying in the way of Jesus: to the Father Jesus knew and revealed to us. We’re praying to a Father who yearns to have a relationship with us, who forgives us when we stray, and who loves us with a love that will never let us go.
 
“Father, hallowed be Your Name, Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation. Amen.”
(Luke 11:2-4)

Mark 6:31
“I’m really busy,” I tell a friend. I proceed to run through all the things I was doing. I say it like a complaint, but it is also an excuse for why I am not doing other things like exercising or reading more books. In many ways, it is also a boast. It’s easy to get caught up in the competition for who is the busiest. Over-busyness is a significant problem among my colleagues. I suspect it is for many of you as well. In complaining about my busyness, I join a chorus of voices that normalize and idolize busyness. If you grew up with or raised kids on VeggieTales videos, you might be thinking about the song “Busy, Busy” from the video “Are You My Neighbor?” The song connects our sense of importance with how busy we are.
I’ve had numerous such conversations, some more recently than I’d like to admit. Sure, I have had busy seasons in my life. The reality, however, is that most times I find myself overly busy because of my own choices to work more, or to take on more responsibility, and to rest less.
God points us in a different direction. While giving us work as a good thing, God also calls us to rest. He calls us to daily periods of rest including sleep, mealtimes, and times of quiet reflection. He also calls us to a weekly day of rest: a built-in Sabbath that we are instructed to honor and keep holy. Interestingly, those scriptural reminders sometimes come in the very passages that tell us that work is a good thing. Genesis 2:2 describes God’s creative activity as “work.” As beings created in God’s image, we are also intended to do meaningful work. But the passage then tells us that God himself rested: “By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work.” If God Himself rests, we can be assured that rest, like work, is a good and holy thing. Taking a break from our labors is not something to be ashamed of, but a way of following and trusting God. We should not be “keeping busy.” Genesis 1 shows, in the progression of evening and morning of each yom, a regular daily rhythm of rest followed by work. Psalm 127:2 also suggests a likewise rhythm: “In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat – for He grants sleep to those He loves.” The Psalmist reminds us that while work itself is not a bad thing, working too hard and too long is not good; we need rest, too.
And just as we sometimes have seasons that prove busier than others, God also leads us to much-needed seasons of rest when we lay aside our labors for longer periods. For the Israelites, these included seasons of celebrations and festivals. God even commanded the Israelites to give their land an entire year of rest every seventh year: a Sabbath year when they were not to till or plant their fields. Constant work not only exhausts us, but it exhausts the world around us. It is consumptive. When we choose to build in rhythms of rest and delight, we give those around us and the earth itself a break from our demands.
If you have any doubts about the need for rest, consider the passage for today’s devotion. When God the Son is incarnate in the person of Jesus, He not only provides an example of choosing times of quiet for Himself away from the busyness of His labors (Mark 1:35, for example), but He calls His disciples to do the same thing. Mark 6:31 tells of a time when Jesus and His disciples were really busy doing good, important work, and Jesus called His disciples to rest: to take a break from their labors even though that meant taking a break from serving the important needs of others: “Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, He said to them, ‘Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’”
As with the beautiful poetic descriptions of God as shepherd in Psalm 23, He makes us lie down in green pastures, and leads us beside quiet waters, giving us a desperately needed period of rest even in the midst of a longer season of work. In doing so, He restored our soul.
As with so many other areas where cultural values conflict with God’s plan, I need regular reminders of how God calls me to live. I also need God’s transforming work in my life so that I live by His pattern and values, rather than conforming to the world’s model. Turning away from the idol of busyness is one of those areas. We all need to heed the call that Jesus gave to His disciples: Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.
 
Thank You, Lord, for times and ways of rest, through which You have blessed and restored my soul.
Help me to seek a practice of rest, and to see the goodness of work without idolizing busyness. Help me also to speak and act in ways that value rest as well as work, and to see and experience rest from labors as a good gift.
Amen.
 

​One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.
 
Psalm 27:4
 
Entering into the summer this year, I am finding myself full of activity. With the end of the school year for the kids, the planning of summer family activities, our trip to Duckwater as well as ministry events like the summer conference and our VBS, I can find this time to be extra stressful and anxiety inducing. My heart becomes jumpy and I am easily angered or upset by small inconveniences. With the busy-ness of activity, I find myself losing sight of God and His love for me.
 
I’ve realized recently, that part of my difficulty in seeing God in the midst of activity is the accumulation of clutter. I’m not necessarily referring to physical clutter that we can sometimes find in our homes, but rather a spiritual and emotional clutter that clogs and distracts us from our relationship with God. Just as we can accumulate items in our homes which cause visual stress and anxiety, we can also accumulate habits, activities, and practices that cause emotional and spiritual stress in our lives. These often distract us and keep us from discerning God’s movements around us.
 
For me, things like sports news, YouTube videos, Instagram, and Netfilx movies get in the way of the one thing I really need, which is the dwell in the house of the Lord and to gaze upon His beauty. These are not necessarily bad, but in certain seasons, they get in the way of how God is forming and shaping me. Instead of seeing God, I am swept away by the latest basketball playoff activity. Or I get caught up watching an exciting movie, leaving me emotionally drained afterwards to engage with anything.
 
So being in this crucial period of time, I’ve reflected on the spiritual de-cluttering that needs to be done in order to make more room for God. To clear out what is unnecessary so that what is beautiful and important can be made central. For me, that included reducing my intake of sports news which I’ve discovered has taken up quite a bit of time and energy. For others, it may be fashion, or food, or gaming, or the latest celebrity news. Curating where we place our attention will influence who we are and how we feel.  We become what we behold.
 
As I’ve done some spiritual de-cluttering, I’ve found it to be helpful in this season of activity. The anxiousness is reduced as I am better able to draw my strength from God. Perhaps there is something you can de-clutter in your own spiritual life? Whatever you find, may this act allow you to behold the beauty of God and to receive His love in greater measure.