“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” — Saint Augustine

Restlessness is running rampant. In conversations with many fellow ministers and disciples, I hear how easy restlessness can take root in our hearts. What once was passion is now a chore. Burnout has quenched the fire in the hearts of many in ministry. God’s desire for His laborers has never been that they grow weary; in fact, His desire is quite the opposite. 

In Matthew 11:28-29, Jesus says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 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” (NIV).

God unceasingly calls us into His rest, but many of us struggle to know how to seek and find this rest. Many times, we fail to find it because we have been misled by messages that point us to a rest that doesn’t reach the soul. If we respond to restlessness by only seeking what we believe our flesh desires, our restlessness may subside for a time, but it will often return. Restlessness is just as much a physical issue as it is spiritual. God’s design and desire for us reveals as much. Therefore, when we seek rest, we cannot afford to miss God’s invitation to find true holistic rest in Him. 

Jesus reveals this reality to us as He comes to fulfill the law, allowing us to enter into a new kind of rest, the kind of rest where the yoke is easy and the burden is light. Jesus invites us to take His yoke and learn from Him. In this new covenant, Jesus asks us to respond to the call to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:30). God offers rest through relationship, not rules. As we learn to live in and from this grace, we dwell deeper in God’s rest.

Before Jesus, the people of Israel were yearning for peace and rest. So often, they thought that by answering their physical need for rest and refreshment they would find fulfillment, but the scriptures make it clear that our physical yearnings do not compare at all to the spiritual malnourishment that we may still be experiencing. Hence, Jesus declares, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35, NIV). Jesus is trying to help us understand that we must stop looking around for fulfillment; instead, we must start looking up. Exodus 16 captures this idea as we see how God’s provision and deliverance look compared to our fleshly desires. The Israelites, after being delivered from bondage, complained of hunger. God answered their cry and provided them with a daily dose of manna. God provided them with what they needed for each day—nothing more, nothing less. There is a lesson of contentment and trust that is revealed in this passage as we see God calling them into something bigger. God honors and satisfies their physical need, but the way in which he does this asks them to trust that God himself is enough. Jesus understood this. In a discussion with the disciples, Jesus states, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about” (John 4:32). Jesus shows us how our spiritual appetite has priority over our physical. Our pursuit of rest must be spiritually grounded in order to truly sustain and satisfy what our soul craves. God wants His children to find rest in Him, a rest that fills our needs far more deeply than any earthly remedy. 

Rest found in God transcends all areas of life. It brings restoration and renewal to our whole self, as God created us. When we confront restlessness, let us not miss the way God is asking us to let Him provide. It is in His presence that our souls find rest, and it is because of His everlasting presence that we may find rest in all things. 

An easy litmus test to discover whether you are truly finding rest in the Lord is the spirit in which you respond to your circumstance. If you are living in a constant state of restlessness amidst your commitment to serving and glorifying the Lord, perhaps you have overlooked the ways in which you are actively loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. The way we approach the scriptures and spiritual disciplines, and especially the way we practice the presence of God, is of utmost importance. The way we live in and from the presence of God will dictate the kind of rest we receive physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We must enter His presence with complete trust that He will meet us in our needs. Wherever you find yourself, I urge you not to settle for a surface-level rest. Draw in close, draw deeper into His presence. Receive the manna, and rest in the hands of the One from whom it was given. My prayer for you is that you may lie down in peace and dwell in safety as you come to recognize and respond to the rest offered to us from God (Psalm 4:8).