A Place of Rest

“Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.” – Psalm 90:1

God knows us far better than we could ever know ourselves.  The Bible teaches that he knows “my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off” (Psalm 139:2).  For those who are charging headlong into the battlement of sin, this could and should be a fearful thing.  To understand that he knows even the most secret sins and sees the innermost unholy unctions, it should stir one to action; to repentance.  However, to the child of God, the knowledge that we are known is a glorious comfort.  The Holy Ghost brings this knowledge of being known to our hearts and in it we find a glorious dwelling place.  We find a rest and comfort in the fact that God is in control.  No matter how dark the night or how long the day; Jesus Christ knows the situation and “he can supply all our need according to his riches in glory.”  In this we find rest, in this we find peace amiss great chaos.

God is “before all things and by him all things consist.” (Colossians 1:17) There is nothing that happens in our lives that he stops and says: “well, I didn’t see that coming.”  He has the help lined up before the problem hits.  He had the donkey tied up before Jesus came to Jerusalem.  He had the upper room prepared and furnished long before the Passover feast.  Simon was going to help carry Jesus’s cross, and Joseph of Arimathea was going to handle burial.  God had it all under control, and he has it all under control.  We do not have to worry.  I ask you: what can you turn to in this world to find help such as this?  What rest, or what comfort is there like the rest and comfort in the Lord?  The devil wants us to take comfort, and try to find rest, in the things of this world; because it takes our eyes off God.  Furthermore, the devil knows the things of this world will fail us.  “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.” (Psalm 20:7) There are so many places and people looking for rest; looking for comfort in this world.  However, no substantial comfort can be given.  The only true comfort is in the arms of Jesus.  When you have the Holy Ghost on the inside, he witnesses to your heart that you are a child of God.  Through this vehicle God says to us “you are mine.”  When we yield to His divine leading it brings glorious assurance that he is in control and in this we find rest and comfort, because the God of this universe is guiding our life.  This is a dwelling place that is unparalleled.  This rest is only found by faith in Jesus Christ; men come and go, pleasures come and go, but Jesus is steadfast and unmovable; he is eternal in heaven and because of that he has been and will be a dwelling place across many generations.

One day, we, each one, will no longer be on this earth.  Somewhere, someone, will likely be standing over our lifeless bodies giving an account of the life we lived.  As they speak, those coming behind us who knew us, they will recount in their minds the life we led.  They will remember the choices we made, and the choices we made will be self-evident.  Where we turned to for rest will be apparent.  Those behind us looking to us, they will see where we found our strength in times of crisis, and they will look to lean on what we leaned on; run to who we ran to.  They will look to where we looked.  They look because they are looking, so stop and ask yourself.  Where are you pointing them?  Where is your place of rest?