Sunday, August 6, 2017

Micah 2:10 -- On Arising and Departing

"Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction."
Micah 2:10


The phrase "this is not your rest" is a phrase that God speaks to us often I think.  We're not so much into the "Endure to the End" thing.  We'd rather be "One and Done" when it comes to the gospel.  Get baptized, profess our faith, read the scriptures, and then go home and do other things and pursue other interests.

That's not the gospel though, and that isn't God.  They aren't human-sized books to read or goals to accomplish.  They are perspectives, ways of life, relationships... things that grow, and things that we become, rather than something we can just do and be done.  And so we get trapped in ruts, thinking that we're done.  That we've changed enough, or grown enough, or suffered enough.  We put limits on God and we say, I'll follow you so far, but not beyond, because that's just crazy.  But God sees what we're doing--those kinds of statements don't limit *him,* they limit *us.*

Rest belongs to a God-sized story that we have barely begun, no matter our age.  When we look for limits, in essence we're saying, okay, I read the prologue, and I'm done.  Or ... cool, I think I'll stop in chapter 5.  It's just getting good and I want it to stay in this kind of anticipatory limbo forever.

When we live the gospel and endure to the end, we find that blowing past those limits doesn't just open us up to the suffering we predicted in chapter six, but also the understanding and acceptance.  We would also have missed the exciting bits in chapters seven through twelve, the eventual triumph in chapter 48, and turning the pages also allows the possibility of the happy ending and the true rest at the end of the book much, much farther along... one of many that we will read in God's eternal library.

Today, let's arise and depart the rut that we are stuck in.  Let's listen to God, and be willing to make him a part of our lives every day, not just once.  Let's keep reading to find the happy ending, and our true rest--this is not it.

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