Christ Is Enough: Rest (Or What To Do In Case Of A Manic Episode)

Okay, yall. So bear with me. I’m going to reference a lot of scripture, but I promise it’s all related to rest.

So, first. How does God define rest in the bible.

Definitions of Rest in the Bible

One of the passages I will be pulling in from the OT is Psalm 95. The way my concordances 

define the word rest in Psalm 95:11 is: H4496 m@nuwchah

repose or (adverbially) peacefully; figuratively consolation (specifically matrimony); hence (concretely) an abode. This is important. What the Hebrews of the day would have associated with the rest of God would be entering Canaan. Now, we know this side of the Old Covenant that there were still enemies and giants to face in the Promised Land, but the Hebrew idea of rest involved tabernacling in Canaan. Settling down and making their abode there.

The main NT passage I will be drawing from quotes from Psalm 95. Hebrews 4:3-11 discusses the believer entering into the final rest of God, thus the heavenly Canaan, eternity. Here, Jesus is the better Joshua who actually will succeed in providing true rest for his people. However, there are two words used for rest in this passage. In verse 8, rest is translated as G2664 katapauo meaning to make quiet, to cause to be at rest, to grant rest. To settle down, to colonize. Here again we see the idea of rest as making a permanent home. The next word in verse 9 that is written in the English translation as Sabbath rest is G4520 sabbatismos. This word is translated as a keeping Sabbath, the blessed rest from toils and troubles looked for in the end of the age to come by the true worshippers of God, the repose of Christianity. This type of rest is connected to heaven, our final resting place for eternity, at home in Christ’s heart.

Now, I am going to make an argument that, though the final rest is something we as believers will have to wait for until heaven, I believe that as heirs of the kingdom, we can appropriate this rest all the time in our hearts. Hear me out. God is returning to this earth to make it new. The New Jerusalem will come down to this earth. So, we can play a part in redeeming this earth now as living vessels of Sabbath rest. Listen, the rest is connected to the presence of God. In heaven, we will have this type of shalom-shalom true rest because we will finally be in the presence of God. But, if you’re a Christian, who do you have living inside of you right now? Holy Spirit! We ARE in the presence of God, all the time. So how do we appropriate this type of rest? I will discuss this later in the blog. First, I want to explain why I began studying rest in the first place.

“Christ is Enough”

I was recently sitting with a friend at dinner and talking to him about this intense loneliness I’d been feeling. I had no idea why because I have plenty of healthy, intimate friendships, a loving and engaged family, and of course, the indwelling, ever present Spirit of God. It didn’t make sense that I could feel alone and empty when I was doing everything “right.” “Christ is enough,” I asserted. “Christ is enough.” My friend looked at me and said, “Now you have to learn what that means.” I was pissed! I know what it means! I just said it, didn’t I?! I can declare fluffy Christian platitudes allllll day long. But I was finally challenged. What do those platitudes mean functionally in a life?

So a week or so later, when the feelings of loneliness hadn’t subsided, I said, “Okay, God. Teach me, show me, reveal to me, what it means that Christ is enough.” I wasn’t expecting an answer very quickly but immediately this thought popped into my head, “Christ is enough so that I can rest.” Nice! Cool. That sounds great. But still, what does it mean…

That night and following morning, I would find out. Hours crept by and I just wasn’t getting tired. I took quadruple the amount of recommended melatonin, and at 5am I even drank a beer to try to knock myself out. Nothing worked and it seemed like I was only gaining MORE energy. Then I realized, shit. Manic episode. Ughhhh. I haven’t had one since my cousin passed away and I bought a ticket to an opera in St. Petersburg, Russia (don’t worry, my dad didn’t let me go). They SUCK. For real. Especially if you know it’s just a deception that the chemicals in your brain are trying to trick you with. I felt like I could run a marathon but my body was raging against all the expense of energy. So I turned on the worship music and remembered what my campus pastor at VT, Michelle Saladino once told me. “Anna, when you’re manic, you need to rest.” That’s exactly the opposite of what your mind makes you think you need. But I realized, I may not be able to sleep, but I can still rest in Christ. I played some spontaneous worship music (shout out Bethel, love ya). And I did rest. The cool presence of the Lord invaded my soul. At that moment, I remembered what the Lord told me about Christ being enough earlier that day/night. “Christ is enough so that I can rest.” God gave me the revelation before I would need it.

How do we appropriate the rest of God?

1)   Faith I was looking into the verses in Heb. 4 that talk about people not entering in rest and hardening their hearts. Well, those verses are directly quoted from Psalm 95 which is a Psalm about the Israelites’ experience at Massah and Meribah. In Exodus 17, this Israelites start grumbling against Moses and God because they were thirsty in the wilderness. Now, their thirst was a real need that needed to be filled or they would die, but the Israelites responded to their need in the wrong way. They doubted a God who had, in multiple chapters of their story, proven he could and wanted to provide for them (don’t get me wrong, I do the same thing, but this is for teaching purposes). So Moses strikes the rock with his staff and water issues forth. (perhaps a picture of one day the streams of living water issuing forth from NT believer’s previously stony hearts? John 7:38). Verse 7 writes, “He [Moses] named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the LORD among us?’” Massah means test and Meribah means quarrel. They didn’t believe that God was who he says his is. So, according to Psalm 95, God says, “Therefore I swore in my anger, truly they shall not enter into my rest.” Because of unbelief, a whole generation didn’t get to see the Promised Land. So, ask God for faith. To believe he is who he says he is. Ask who he is in your circumstance, your dire need. And believe him.

2)   Worship When any of my girls (who already know the Lord) comes ot me with any spiritual warfare or issues of dire need, I tell them to open their mouths and worship the Lord. It’s not about whether they can sing well or not, it’s about tearing down strong holds with the declared word of God. It’s about pushing back principalities of darkness that are trying to threaten them. Like Paul and Silas learned in their midnight prison cell, worship changes circumstances (whether physical chains break or not).

3)   Settle Down One of the definitions for our Hebrew word for rest is abode and one of the Greek words is defined by colonization and “settiling down”. A cool word picture of this occurs in Jeremiah 29. Jeremiah 29:4-11, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, ‘Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters, and multiply there and do not decrease. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare… For thus says the LORD, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill my good word to you, to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.’” Often my bipolar disorder can make me feel imprisoned and exiled, but God has a will that I would settle down and flourish still. Wherever you are may feel like a place of exile, but settle down and be fruitful and see what occurs. When we walk out the Great Commision (whether from Gen. 1:28 “Be fruitful and multiply” or Matthew 28 “Make disciples of all nations”) we will find purpose and internal rest in our “exiles”. When we choose to settle down and obey God in the midst of our heart ache, I have experienced that the Lord honors that with true, heavenly rest. Rest that cannot be stolen by times that feel like exile.

Thanks for reading, if you made it this far. I pray that you experience all the rest the Lord has for you in this season and for the rest of your life!