The sky feels almost translucent; from the window I watch a sunrise open its vast, blue wings to reveal a more heavenly scape. The palette is Studio Ghibli-esque, only more defined, richer in its vibrancy. Autumn has arrived. Wind from the river moves through the window, making its brisk natures felt. Like a mother tousling her son's unruly hair, the wind rustles the leaves of our Giving Tree. There is a weather vane, resting on the curvature of black shingle on a roof underneath our flat's second floor window. It is unmoved. Its metal North and South do not budge, not even a little.
I first noticed the weather vane when we moved into the flat on a calm, spring day. Its stationary nature felt normal, expected even. But as the months progressed, I realised that the vane was, in fact, moored to its steel rod and would never move. Even when determined winds blew up from the river, the weather vane remained obdurate in its giving of directions. The North arrow always pointed North; the South arrow South.
I used to wait for the weather vane to spin, watching carefully from my writing desk under the window. But now, after having lived unemployed in the flat for almost six months, I know that it will never move, if it ever did. This morning I find great comfort in the weather vane. Its immovability paradoxically opposes the wind.
We humans beings are often spun about by the fallibility of the human body and mind. We make decisions, use our words and are tossed in many opposing directions based on how we feel and what we believe in a given moment. Like a working weather vane, we point ourselves to please the direction of our fickle nature – our feelings and reception of the ever-changing world around us.
Like many, I am deeply influenced by unpredictably. The broken weather vane outside my wind reminds me to moor my mind so that it cannot be swerved by "whims." It reminds me that I can remain resolute – fixed and immovable – even in my fragility; and to stand firm in directing myself toward what I believe is lasting and true.
Unemployment has be a lonely time. Lonely and oddly unfamiliar. I feel shy when my husband and I go to the odd photography lecture or meet new friends at church because I do not know what to say when they ask about my work. My unemployment is worrisome. We are newly married and living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I am worried that we will suffer in the near future. Though my husband's pay is honourable, his salary is small; our savings smaller still.
My husband, who is not ignorant of our financial situation, is never pushy or unkind. He does not ask me to find work. He reminds me that he is proud of what I do during the day, even if all I manage is a poem or a walk along the canal. My husband asks questions about the kind of jobs that pique my curiousity. He is quiet when we walk down the street and spot a vacancy in the window; supportive when I enquire within. No matter what the role is, he is confident that God will guide me where He knows best. Whether full-time or part-time. Whether in retail, commercial, charitable. Industry matters little to him. Status even less. Maybe this is because many of the people in his circle climbed their way up ladders of their own making, pursuing things that (I have seen) light them in the most extraordinary ways.
My husband, who is also a photographer, works full-time in an umbrella shop on New Oxford Street. Every working night he comes home having interacted with at least sixty individuals; many of whom bring their lives into the shop with them, sharing memories of when they last purchased an umbrella; or recounting what they do on rainy days when the rest of the world wants to sleep. My husband is the only person I interact with on the routine. Though I would choose his company every time, I miss the simple pleasure of interacting with someone I do not know. Even the opportunity to interact with those I do know has decreased – many of them are immersed in their own work environments or live far away. This season of unemployment has been gentle in that it has allowed my body to heal from chronic pain. Given me time to read and write. But the length of unemployment also made space for my loneliness and anxiety to grow.
Last Saturday I interviewed for a bookseller role; interviewed again on Monday for a job working in events. I left the first interview with a beam in my shoe. I felt calm, lifted. The interviewers had been generous with their time and questions. I wept after the second interview. Curled into my husband's arms like a small pup. Though the interviewers had been equally generous, I was tired.
There have been many times during this season of unemployment where people have, albeit with good intention, made me feel guilty for wanting to work. Conversations are centred on the loveliness of "rest." But I have found that certain rest can make one feel equally restless when it becomes unbalanced.
I wonder about the tension between work and rest; why our bodies long for a balance between them. Throughout the Bible, God demonstrates the value of work and rest by working and resting. In the book of Genesis, God worked for six days to make the world a reflection of His majestic goodness. On the seventh day, God reflected on what He had made, considered it good, and rested from his work. When we look at the way God works today, we have faith that He is always working for our good (Romans 8:28), and that his work is preparing us for, and preparing for us, an eternal resting place with Him in heaven (John 14:1-6). In Psalm 23, the musician and shepherd-King David describes God as the one who works for the rest of His people:
The Lord makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake. Even when I walk through the darkest valley I will fear no evil, God is with me. His rod and staff comfort me. The Lord God anoints my head with oil; my cup overflows in abundance. Surely the goodness and love of God will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
The words used to describe God are verbs; the Lord God makes, leads, refreshes, guides, comforts and anoints. To put it simply, God works so that we may find rest in Him. The concept of God as our resting places expresses the total stability, dependability and eternal constancy of His divine nature. In Psalm 62, David more directly sings: "My soul finds its rest in God."
When writers of the Old Testament consider "resting places," they often referred their readers to the tabernacle or temple spaces. The tabernacle was a portable dwelling place, carried through the wilderness by the Israelites. God architectured the tabernacle by giving clear instructions to the Israelites on how they were to build His dwelling place. The temple built in Jerusalem was similarly architectured by the Lord God as a place where God would dwell among His people. Both the tabernacle and the temple were accessible only by priests who carefully followed the burnt, grain, well-being, purification and reparation offerings. In meeting with God in this most Holy place, these High Priests would sacrifice an unblemished lamb as atonement for individual sin and for the sin of the nation. They were designated times at which a High Priest would be invited to enter the Holiest space in the tabernacle or temple; and only then, by the casting of lots. This Holy space, called the Holy of Holies, was separated from the main court of the building; and was the innermost sanctuary. Entry outwith the ordinand of God would result in death. God designed the ordinands to protect His people so that they would not die because He knew that His great and defined holiness would overwhelm the sin buried deep in their heart. Sins accomplished at own's own hand and sin inherited by Adam and Eve. Sin in the presence of God is like darkness in the presence of light; immediately eradicated, all shadows with it.
In the New Testament Jesus came to the world as God's perfect son; the unblemished, atonement lamb and High Priest. In the Gospel we read that Jesus died on the cross to purify His people so that God's Holy spirit could make his holy dwelling in their heart. Before ascending into heaven after the resurrection, Jesus encouraged his disciples with these words: "I will pray to my Father, and He will give you His Spirit, to be with you forever" (John 14:17). This correlates with the words of the apostle Paul in his letter to the believers in Corinth: "Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?" (1 Cor 6:19).
Unlike the nation of Israel in BC times, we are no longer separated from God's presence by sin. No longer do we require ordinance and a dividing wall to meet with Him. Because Jesus purified us through his sacrifice on the cross we have been welcomed into the Holy of Holies. Given eternal access to God's glorious presence. Walking in closeness with God is crucial to our understanding of what it means to work and rest. Jesus revealed different attributes of God's character through His working and resting on earth, but always there was a parallel between them: to love God with all His heart, soul and mind.
When we love someone, we want to spend time in them. We are comfortable in their presence, and we long for it. We are willing, happy even, to sacrifice our dreams for theirs until their dreams become our very own. When we love God, we want to spend time in Him. We feel at rest when we are with Him. We are willing, happy even, to carry a cross and follow Him because we know that He is good to us. He leads, refreshes, guides, comforts and anoints. More wondrous even than this, we know that He is always with us. Always leading, refreshing, guiding, comforting and anointing. This applies to seasons of work and seasons of rest. Applies to seasons of an imbalance between them. God is our rest in seasons laden with work, and God purposes our rest for His good work, because He loves us. We were made in His image by His very hands to reflect who He is by doing what He does. We learn how to lead, refresh, guide and comfort those who, like us, are always in need of love when we understand that this is the heart of God; and that God's heart, unlike ours, will never fail. Because work and rest are intrinsic to God's nature, work and rest are intrinsic to our understanding of that nature. God reveals to us how we will best purpose our seasons of work and rest for His glory and for the good of others when we trust in His closeness and love.
There are many things that can upset our balance between work and rest. Unemployment is one reason; health, finances, responsibilities and personality are other examples. This year I felt imbalanced by grief and gratitude. Moments shuffled between tenderness and terror; from severe chronic pain and hospital visits to the memorial of a dear friend who unexpectedly died early in the year; from leaving my place of employment due to health to the loveliness of summer-turned fall and the comfort of a slow walk outside; from engagement to marriage and all that its reveals. Most of all, this year has brought an imbalance of confidence both mentally and physically. The insecurity of my physical health made my mental wellbeing feel unstable. I felt small and afraid almost all the time. I felt like my work was meaningless; and my rest, even less. What was the purpose in it all? I wondered. No amount of work or rest brought light to the fog in my mind. That is, until I realised that though I was trying I could not lead, refresh, guide or comfort myself into rest.
I needed to humble myself and realise that if God was my Shepherd and the atoning lamb, His work on the cross meant that whatever I did, so long as it was in heart to love and be loved him, then I truly had nothing to fear or be insecure about. As it says in Hebrews 13:6, "So we say with confidence, the Lord is my Helper, I will not be afraid."
We must allow God to help us. When someone tries to help us, they give advice or wisdom. This is also true of God. Throughout scripture he tells us how to walk and live in a way that brings glory to his name and rest to our soul. We must listen and obey what He tells us to do in His word and in order to hear what He wants us to do with our time with our work and rest we must spend time with him in that work and rest. Choosing to listen and obey is a valuable way to structure our work and rest. Think of the parable that Jesus told in Matthew 7: "Whoever hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. When winds come and beat against the house, it will not fall."
Consider your own life at the moment. Where do you feel on the scale between work and rest? Maybe you long for a quiet moment in the midst of your long, arduous work week, but as soon as you are given the quiet moment, you feel paralysed by indecision on how to spend it. You worry that you will spend that quiet moment in a way that hinders your rest, rather than rejuvenates it; and you allow worry to undermine and transfigure the grace of that quiet moment into disquieting fear. Maybe you turn to what you hear is the best form of rest, rather than listening for the voice of rest Himself.
Maybe you long for a project, something to fill you with momentum and instil all the wonder of your heart into the work of your hands. Maybe you feel crippled by a great need to be productive; nothing you do is good enough, or more simply enough. Maybe you compare the work you do to standards you see in others, or in the world around you. Maybe you only consider work to be of value if it is paid or praised by others.
Maybe you are afraid to be alone because your loneliness distract you in the work, disturbs your rest. Or maybe you are afraid when others are around because your insecurities around the imbalance between your work and rest warp your confidence in who God is calling you to be at a given time.
Last week I read a quote that said "success in life is often determined by mastery over the commonplace." Work and rest are foundational to the commonplace; and mastery takes time. According to Malcolm Gladwell, mastery in any field requires at least 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. This means that we will not immediately master what it means to work and rest; what it means to listen and obey God. However, in Matthew 7, Jesus says: "Whoever hears my words and puts them into practice." He uses the word "practice" because He knows that it will take us time to learn how to listen and obey.
There is much pressure in the world to master life immediately. Advertisements and social media often infer that we can bypass the practice stages. But false mastery is unsustainable and minimises the glorious intricacy of intentionality, dedication and time.
The apostolic writer Pau used the word "practice" when he encouraged the early Christian church to "put into practice" what they had heard, seen and received from Godly example. If we want to walk with God, learning to hear and obey his will, we must practice. Like Christ, we must give ourselves – and others – grace when the practicing takes time. When, like a new musician, our ears are still tender and untuned.
We live in a world that is affected by the fickle nature of human feelings and natural circumstances that mutate over time. Our commonplace will change but God will not. His faithfulness, like the weather vane outside my window, is not blown out of proportion or affected by a whim. The rest we receive from Him cannot be belittled or manipulated by our restlessness because the work of God, who is source of rest Himself, cannot be undermined. This is what makes the connection between work and rest so profound. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus says: "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." We carry the yoke by listening, learning and obeying God; it is this very yoke that ploughs the heart until it becomes soft and fertile – yielding the fruit of what God Himself wants to plant in our lives.
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