An Invitation to October Rest: A Devotional

This month I wrote a devotional reflection for our church’s Neighborhood Community Newsletter, and I thought I’d share it here on the blog as well for anyone looking for a little encouragement to rest this Fall.

When I was 18, I went on a backpacking trip in Northern Wisconsin the weeks before I started college. About a third of the freshman class participated, and while the people running the program were intentionally vague about the details, they told us that we’d be doing a 3-day solo, fasting experience towards the end of the trip.

I had never spent 3 days by myself, let alone three days by myself, in the wilderness, not eating, but just praying and being with God. This, I was sure, would be the most challenging part of the trip for me.

But it turns out that it wasn’t.

My solo time ended up being on the sandy beaches of Lake Superior at the end of August. The weather was nearly perfect, and I was on a beach all by myself. I felt a deep invitation from the Lord to simply be—“to make sand castles with Jesus.” I read the gospels and made sandcastles. It felt like being on vacation with God, where he had no other agenda than to be together and enjoy the beauty of His world. It has become one of my most precious memories of experiencing God.

It turns out that by the time I got there, my digestive system was completely done with all the essentially hard tack and other camping foods. I was completely fine with not eating for three days. And that while I loved the other girls in my group, God was also showing me that I had some serious people-pleasing tendencies, and three days by myself turned out to be a welcomed relief from trying to earn people’s love. But the most surprising discovery was that what I expected to be hard—reading and praying for three days—was filled with an unexpected joy and ease.

I wonder where you are this Fall? Do you finally have a bit of space and time, like I do, where the demands of kids being at home in the summer have given way to the rhythms of the school year? Or are you more like my husband, so full of extra work at work and extra work with coaching and church responsibilities that finding five quiet minutes seems impossible? Either way, God can meet you. He wants to meet you and give you rest.

I love the way that Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message, that famous invitation of Jesus’ in Matthew 11:28-30:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Take a deep breath. God is with you. He loves you. He wants to give you rest, right where you are in your real life.

My prayer for you is that in the beauty of October, God sweeps you up. That as you look at the brilliant colors of the trees, you will be reminded that the God who made them is the same God who is with you.

The Holy Spirit wants you to rest in him—it may be more playful and full of ease than you imagine. It may be squeezed into the cracks of your day if you have eyes to see, or it may gently squeeze out other things and be a spacious place you find you are drawn to again and again.

May you “get away with Jesus and recover your life” today, this week, this season. May something you thought would be impossibly hard be filled with surprising joy and ease as it is done with God. May you be surprised again and again that God loves you, and wants to be with you and wants to teach you to “live freely and lightly.” And may you help to create a space where the people in your life experience that same rest with God.