Entering God's Rest

I was thinking a little about rest for a little bit this morning. I realize that home in the States has a lot of luxuries. Fully supported mattresses, high-speed internet, water you can drink from the tap, air-conditioning and heat whenever you want, accessibility of nutrition, a lot less insects, running water, fully functioning bathrooms etc, etc. Now in the filipino slums (and we're not even staying with the poorest of the poor) we have limited access to communication, rice is a main staple of our diet with very little else, dip baths and manual flush toilets, humidity you can't escape, etc, etc.

The question I was thinking about is: how is it possible to make this transition without feeling miserable (that is just beyond surviving the circumstances)?. Living a life of luxury and moving into a life of poverty... and it occurred to me. How in the world can I really be satisfied within a life of luxury... how I feel physically, emotionally, and spiritually cannot be simply adjusted by turning on the air conditioning, surfing on the internet, drinking cleaner water. In fact I can do these things and actually feel worse/become more lethargic.

All of this is grace. And rest transcends the boundaries of what we have. Rest is simply grace from God wherever we are, whatever the circumstances. He will provide me rest because I am His. In heat or coolness, padding or non, flushing toilets or dip baths, the beauty is not the quality of these things, but the quality of God's love. I can rest well here regardless of luxury, when Our father provides.

Today I woke up at 4AM, weird. But I do not have to worry because I am already resting with Jesus.

Psalm 139:2-3 (NIV)
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

Hebrews 3:7-15 (NIV)
7So, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you hear his voice, 8do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, 9where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. 10That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.' 11So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest'". 12See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 15As has just been said: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion."

Isaiah 40:27-31 (NIV)
27Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God"? 28Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. ²⁹He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. ³⁰Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; ³¹but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

**N.B** I hope what I'm conveying is not about becoming apathetic to our condition. That is to become careless by how we live, in luxury or poverty. I think rest is simply another aspect of our relationship with God we can live out.

A Picture of Rest