There is no music in a rest, but there is making of music in it.

This coming Sunday my husband will be preaching from Genesis 2:1-3. He will focus on REST. This is a crucial concept for all believers to learn. I've been wondering why I struggle with it so much. After all, God Himself rested. And not only that, He "blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done." So what is my problem with rest? I believe that my perception of rest is that it has no meaning, no purpose. Sure, it may have some restorative powers, but not enough to take away the the fact that time is being wasted! Projects are piling up! Plus, how does resting make me look to others? Oh - and worst of all, is when I am forced to rest (like today because of another migraine)!

In reality, God's perception of rest is not like mine at all. He knows it has purpose. Perhaps even more purpose than work or why would He declare the seventh day holy? This morning I was reminded of something I had read in an Elisabeth Elliot Newsletter back in the year 2000. I include it below. Thank you LORD God, for reminding me of this article. May it be a help to others too.

"There are sometimes spaces in our lives which seem empty and silent. Things grind to a halt for one reason or another. Not long ago, in the space of a few days, the “music” in my life seemed to stop because of a rejection, a loss, and what seemed to me at the time a monumental failure. I was feeling rather desolate when I came across a paragraph written more than a hundred years ago by the artist John Ruskin: “There is no music in a rest, but there is making of music in it. In our whole life-melody, the music is broken off here and there by ‘rests,’ and we foolishly think we have come to the end of time. God sends a time of forced leisure—sickness, disappointed plans, frustrated efforts—and makes a sudden pause in the choral hymn of our lives and we lament that our voices must be silent, and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of the Creator. How does the musician read the rest? See him beat time with unvarying count and catch up the next note true and steady, as if no breaking place had come between. Not without design does God write the music of our lives. But be it ours to learn the time and not be dismayed at the ‘rests.’ They are not to be slurred over, nor to be omitted, nor to destroy the melody, nor to change the keynote. If we look up, God Himself will beat time for us. With the eye on Him we shall strike the next note full and clear.” So the Lord brought to me precisely the word I needed at the moment: there was ‘the making of music’ in what seemed a hollow emptiness. It’s His song, not mine, that I’m here to sing. It’s His will, not mine, that I’m here to do. Let me focus my vision unwaveringly on Him who alone knows the complete score, “and in the night His song shall be with me” (Psalm 42:8). The following was given to me many years ago by my dear Aunt Anne Howard. I wish I knew the author: Help me to live this day quietly, easily; To lean upon Thy great strength trustfully, restfully; To meet others peacefully, joyously; To face tomorrow confidently, courageously."