"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where you fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said 'They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.' As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.'"
Hebrews 3:7b-11 (emphasis mine)
If you're familiar with the biblical narrative, you may be aware of the story of the Israelites. They spent centuries in Egypt, growing in number, then eventually being forced into slavery. Through a series of miracles, God freed them from slavery and led them through the wilderness for 40 years, eventually bringing them into the land of Canaan, which we now frequently refer to as the Promised Land.
When I read this passage in Hebrews a few weeks ago, I was wandering through my own spiritual, emotional and mental wilderness. I had spent nearly two decades cherishing the self-reliance that had come from building my life around a commitment to singleness. But last April, the Lord broke my spirit of pride, asked me to surrender that self-reliance, and start to pray that He would send me a husband. I felt immediate freedom, but a year and a half into the journey, I found myself questioning whether that was really from Him, whether my wisdom and own careful plans might be more sufficient than waiting in trust for something that may never happen. Wasn't it better for me to just want singleness if I'm never getting married anyway? But then I read this verse, and the warning not to harden my heart, that if I hardened my heart I would not "enter the rest."
Digging into what that actually meant took me down a much longer path, with much deeper implications than me trusting the Lord with my singleness and desire for marriage, and I'm excited to share what the Lord has been teaching me over a series of blog posts. But given the season that we're in as a people - a season of war and division and brokenness and fear - I wanted to give some encouragement from the Hebrews passage before I dive into the much deeper richness of the wilderness narrative.
"For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his." Hebrews 4:8-10
Our rest is ultimately found in the finished work of Christ on the cross. Without knowing and understanding and abiding in this, we will never find rest. In John 19:20, when Jesus dies, he says "It is finished." What was finished? Prior to Jesus, the Israelites observed an elaborate series of ceremonial rituals called the sacrificial system to atone for sin. Christ was the ultimate sacrifice, taking the penalty for sin once and for all.
Although so many of us know this at an intellectual level, we also need to constantly remind ourselves to abide in Jesus and in His rest. The Hebrews passage gives us several practical ways to experience this rest:
- Worship: This passage in Hebrews is quoting Psalm 95, which starts off with praise to our Lord. "Come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our God our maker." (v1) When we are having trouble experiencing rest, we can take our eyes off ourselves and put them on the One who is "a great King above all gods" (v3), who holds the depths of the earth in his hand (v4) and who made the sea and the dry land (v5).
- Community: Hebrews 3:13 tells us to "exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today'." If you find it easy to grow tired, to lose faith, to forget your identity in Christ, this is normal! It's why we're commanded to keep telling each other. So we need to draw into a community of believers who can remind us that we can rest in the finished work of Christ.
- Serving: In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus tells us to come to him when we labor and are heavy laden, and he will give us rest. But he doesn't give us a couch and a Netflix subscription when we come to him, he gives us an easier yoke and a lighter burden. Isaiah 55:2 says "Why do you spend... your labor for that which does not satisfy?" One way to find rest is to take on the work that Jesus calls us to, doing it together with Him. (Side note*: this does actually tie into the Hebrews passage, but it would take longer to explain, so see the footnote at the bottom if you're interested.)
- Repentance: Hebrews 3:13 tells us to exhort one another "that none of [us] may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." Having a regular rhythm of confession and repentance allows us to continue marveling at God's grace (and our rest), and also keeps us from being deceived by sin. In Psalm 139:23-24, David asks the Lord to search him and know his heart. Likewise, we should be asking the Lord to reveal the sin that we can't see.
- Scripture: Hebrews 4:12 talks about how the word of God is living and active, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. We must be plugged into the Bible (the written word of God), and abiding in Christ (the Word of God - John 1:1).
- Prayer: I am careful to define prayer here as a two-way street. In Psalm 95, we are referred to as the sheep of his pasture, and then there is a reference to hearing his voice. In John 10, Jesus says his sheep hear his voice. When we pray, we draw close to God in fellowship, and we learn to hear his voice.
