Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)
This past weekend, I rediscovered something
about myself. Christmas Eve, I found myself thinking about the next day. It
would be busy. I had church in the morning, followed by cooking carrots for
Christmas dinner, helping with the Christmas dinner, the dinner itself, and
writing. The thought that shouted more loudly than the others was that I had
“made it” – or nearly so. The next day I could take down the Christmas
decorations and get back to normal life.
Last year at this time, I was reading about resting and reducing my workload
for Sundays so I could have a day of rest. Quite often, at least at first, I
found myself looking forward to when Sunday would be over, so I could get busy
again. With both Christmas and Sunday as a day of rest, I tend to miss the
point. I am mis-categorizing the concept.
There are things that are simply the
absence of something else. Darkness is the absence of light. Cold is the
absence of heat. But the reverse of those is not true. Light is not the absence
of darkness, and heat is not the absence of cold. There are other things that don’t
work that way at all. Work is not the absence of rest, nor is rest the absence
of work. Good is not the absence of evil, nor is evil the absence of good.
I
think of these things in terms of a number line. In between negative numbers
and positive numbers is something which is neither. It is zero, nothing, a figurative
lack of existence. Making it to the threshold is not the same as entering in. Why
do I insist on camping on the front steps? Or on running out to another task
rather than entering in? I suspect there are a number of lies to be defeated.
One
of my goals for 2022 is to at least start to learn to enter in. In a
conversation with God a week or so ago, He talked about my needing to learn to
dance with him. That will require that I go beyond the level of “take to steps,
stop and pose” to actual dancing.
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