photo credit: me!
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 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. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30
oh how i want to rest! and yet, it seems to be the very hardest thing for me to do! “what do you mean i don’t have to do anything? how can this be? i mean, if i’m not striving, working, earning something, aren’t i just a slacker taking advantage of grace?”
but as hard as this is for me to wrap my mind around, if i’m NOT resting, i’m denying the grace of God. i’m refusing God’s promise that His grace, Christ’s death is sufficient to save me from my sin and perfect me every day (see Galatians 3 and 5 or my previous post). This is unbelief! I’m refusing to believe that God is telling me the truth about his rest.
There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.
Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.
Hebrews 4:9-11
Ray Stedman explains this for us very well. you can read his whole commentary on the book of Hebrews for free here. Here’s a quote from it (all emphasis mine):
Moses was just a servant, but Jesus was the master. Moses led the people of God out of Egypt towards the land of Canaan, which was the symbol of the rest of God—the rest which God wants people to learn to live on inside their hearts…Jesus leads into the actual place of rest.
That rest is defined for us here in chapter 4. It says,
“whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from his labors as God did from his.” (Heb. 4:10)
That is, if you stop depending upon yourself and your self-effort, you have learned to enter into rest, because you start depending upon another—God’s work in you. That is the lost secret of humanity. That is the secret that Adam and Eve lost in the Garden of Eden, and which Jesus Christ came to restore to us. When we learn to operate on that, we learn to be perfectly peaceful, calm, undisturbed by circumstances, trusting, powerful, effective, accomplishing things for Christ’s sake. And that is rest…Therefore, he says, “let us strive to enter that rest” (vs. 11), lest like those people in the wilderness, we fall away and lose out on what God has for us.
i’m hanging on to God’s promise that he has rest for me, that he has already done it all, and that i am already victorious because of Christ’s death. he says i am more than a conqueror! (romans 8) and i am going to believe that with all i’ve got! that’s an anchor to hold me fast even in the storms and raging seas of life.
just be loved. just rest.
Notes From the Well 
Can I get a name to call you by? Any name [even your blog initials] will do.
I’m so glad to find your site!! My name is Robin Claire.
my blog is at: http://robinclaire.wordpress.com/
I thought you might like to connect up with me and my blog. This is not an advertisement. I am also a re-born Christian [since 1982]. I have alcoholism [sober since 1980] and have a severe form of Bipolar disorder [is the severe type a 1 or a 2?]. I also have a lot of PTSD from growing up with an undiagnosed mentally-ill rampaging alcoholic father and an [emotionally] absent mother. God is restoring me little-by-slow and 1-day-at-a-time.
love to you friend,
robin
hi robin! i am rachel. so nice to meet you and so glad you stopped by and commented. sorry for taking so long to get back to you. i get easily distracted! 😉
i’m so excited to read your blog and of course i would LOVE to connect with you. 🙂
congratulations on your sobriety. praise GOD! only he could make such healing possible! i’m sure you know this, but i just want to encourage you that God has more healing for you and that it is possible. 2012 was a really good year for me, but even as recently as late 2011, i was certain that i would never get better and that nothing could help me. i am so glad i was wrong! God has proven Himself faithful again and again.
and for me, the biggest part of my healing has not been to be free of illness or instability, but rather to learn how to deal with my illness, how to accept it, and to accept His total acceptance of me, no matter what! He has taught me so much about grace (and i have so much more to learn!) and that grace has enabled me to be patient with myself and my illness and to receive His love and strength in all things.
to my knowledge, the really severe bipolar is type 1. type 1 is characterized by REALLY high highs and REALLY low lows. the highs (mania) cause abnormal behavior: grandiose thinking (i’m going to save the world! i’m a part of the trinity!, etc.), fast talking, decreased perceived need for sleep, insomnia, and others. i think the defining difference is that the mania of bipolar 1 can cause psychotic symptoms – delusions or hallucinations. bipolar 2 does not have psychotic symptoms.
bipolar 2 has all the lows of type 1, but the high periods are hypomania (literally “below mania). they are not as intense or severe as the true mania of type 1. hypomania can manifest in a number of ways as well: being more energetic, talkative, confident, productive and assertive; having flights of ideas and feeling more creative; hypersexuality; anxiety; irritability.
people with type 1 can experience both true mania AND hypomania as their moods cycle. for example, possibly hypomania would precede or follow a true manic episode.
love to you my friend. please stick around! i want to hear your thoughts! 🙂