When I originally wrote what has become this Song of Rest series, I was talking to myself – that is, I was talking to the self that for so long didn’t know she didn’t know.

I was comforting the good Baptist girl who did not know she had spent most of her life pursuing what posed as love but is not.

I was encouraging the anxious over-achiever who truly loved her Lord, but had no clue how to rest in his love.

Today, I’ve come so very far from where I was then. Yet ever since the day I first saw Psalm 23 as a song of rest, it has continued to delight me and to encourage and comfort me. Again and again, it has calmed me down and turned me around.

Today, let’s look at the final verse of this psalm. It’s a cry of faith to God, and a call to all of us to celebrate and to embrace the Lord’s faithful, merciful, pursuing, welcoming love.

As I conclude the self-talk that I started in a darkest-valley time in my life, I pray Psalm 23 will be spirit and life to you too. That God will so breath his living words into your being that they will continue to restore you, to refresh and reorient you.

The moment we realize

The pursuit of happiness sounds like a good thing. So does the search for significance, the appeal for approval, the determination to gain validation. Yet all can be carrot-on-a-stick pursuits that relentlessly rob us of rest.

When we live our lives seeking first anything other than the Lord himself, we invite either or both these results:

• What we’re seeking will continue to elude us.
• We’ll grab hold of it, only to find it empty.

Even more tragic, our empty pursuits will always keep us two steps ahead of what truly, deeply satisfies, and what is in fact pursuing us.

Ah, but the moment we realize we’re seeking the desires of our heart in all the wrong places, that’s the moment we can begin to return to our rest.

As we stop chasing the carrot and learn instead to follow “the great Shepherd of the sheep” (Heb. 13:20), everything that truly fulfills us catches up to us.

David knew that, but he too sometimes had to remind himself. And so he sang:

Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever. (v. 6)

Everything for which our hearts yearn

The Hebrew word translated love in that verse is so filled with meaning, no English word begins to come close. It encompasses God’s mercy, kindness, lovingkindness, grace, faithfulness and his love that never fails. Couple all that with the wide expanse of God’s goodness and we’ve got everything for which our hearts yearn.

While we chase the empty substitutes, the real thing follows us – not just padding along behind, but pursuing, chasing us down, with the intent to catch us and lavish us with intimacy, purpose and delight beyond anything we’ve ever known.

Think of it! All that David experienced and described in Psalm 23 – all of it – is still flowing from God’s great love, in hot pursuit of you. It is his delight to so work in your life that you too can testify:

Lord, you are my shepherd.
I lack no good thing.
You provide for me an oasis of peace
where you calm me and walk with me,
and nourish my hungry, thirsty soul.

You restore – and return to you – that inner part of me
that cannot fathom you
and balks at the cost of following you
and wears itself out trying to get its own way.
You guide me in right paths
for your name’s sake.

Even when I walk
through dark, dark valleys,
I can face evil without being overcome by fear.
For you are with me.
You guide and protect me,
And oh, how you comfort me.

You provide for me what deeply satisfies me –
and what those who wish me ill cannot thwart.
You anoint me for the task before me –
the fragrance identifies my life and calling as yours.
How amazing and ever-flowing is your superabundant grace!

And there’s more!

Drawing this psalm to a close, David looked to the future with faith and hope, and offered two gentle reminders about love. Please don’t struggle to grasp these truths mentally. Instead, relax into them, as the Holy Spirit sings to you, Spirit-to-spirit.

Resting in God’s love, we go places – and we’re home

“Surely your goodness and love will follow me.” When something is following us, we’re going somewhere.

How wonderful! God’s lavish love pursues and overtakes us as we journey through this life.

His love cheers us on as we venture where we’ve never been, where others may disapprove, but our Lord says is right. His love holds us tight as we pass through valleys so dark they may seem worse than death. His love calls us back when we stray into danger or sin.

“I will dwell in the house of the Lord.” Resting in God’s love, we go places – but also, we live somewhere. We’re on a journey – and yet we have a home, a place where we will always and forever belong.

The God who so loves us invites us, welcomes us, empowers us, to remain in Christ, to abide in his presence, to relax in the warmth of his love.

We can rest in God’s love both now and forever

“Forever.” Thank you, Jesus! Beyond the grave, all who know you as Lord will experience rest fully.

Not oblivion. Not purposelessness. Not inactivity. More fully than ever before, we will live – and we will delight in your provision, your unforced rhythms, your intimate presence, your outpoured favor, your love.

Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?
Death has been swallowed up in victory! (1 Cor. 15:55, 54)

“All the days of my life.” Thank you, Lord! Contrary to what many of our church cultures have taught us, you have also made the way for us to live from a place of rest in this life, each new day. Earnestly, persistently, you invite us:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matt. 11:28-29)

I will rest in your pursuing love

Help me to hear you, Lord; help me to believe you, as you say to me:

You are precious and honored in my sight. I love you. (See Isaiah 43:4)

Help me to love you with all my heart and soul and mind and strength.

When I am pursuing what cannot satisfy, show me what I’m doing and why. Show me where it’s taking me. Show me what I may desperately need to realize, but do not want to see. By your grace, I will receive what you reveal. I will heed your warnings, that shout to me of your love. I will abandon my empty pursuit and go with you.

The path where you lead may not look at all as I had imagined. Yet as I turn from what had falsely promised me value and fulfillment, and as I come to you, mercy overwhelms me. Delightful and beautiful things overtake me.

All day, every day, I live with you. You in me, I in you, I abide in your presence, communing with you, being transformed by you. I live in the embrace of your goodness and your grace-filled, risk-taking, covenant-keeping love.

Whatever the task, the challenge, the heartache, the dilemma, before me, I can face it from a place of rest. And when I do not – when I’m lured away by deceptive promises and desires; when I pull away out of fear or anger, greed, shame or pride – your love still chases after me, and by your grace I can turn and embrace it again.

Yes! Your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
all my days,
and I will find my home in you, Lord,
always.

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Adapted from Return to Your Rest: A Spirit-to-spirit Journey, © 2016, 2019.

Image by Briam Cute from Pixabay

Posts in the Song of Rest series

• Psalm 23: Song of rest
• I shall not want: Resting in God’s provision
• He restores my soul: Resting in God’s unforced rhythms
• I will fear no evil: Resting in God’s very present help
• My cup overflows: Resting in God’s favor
• Now and forever: Resting in God’s love

See also

• Mary Magdalene stuck her neck out
• Darkness, betrayal and the heartbeat of God
• God who loves fiercely
• The blessing of rest
• Spirit to spirit: A matter of life and breath
• A sign and a wonder: The amazing grace cycle
• I choose light