Active Rest: When Knowing the Truth Isn't Enough

Welcome back to the final episode of Returning to Joy Season 4! The past several weeks have been so rich with reflections and new insights around the rest that Jesus offers, and the ways it can both heal us and empower us. 

In this final episode, we'll consider that simply knowing what Jesus says about rest is often not enough to keep us from being swayed by the demands and pace of the world around us. An active resilience is required, and is the kind of rest that Jesus modeled for us in the midst of everything that was set before him.

We hope you enjoyed this series, and we will see you in March for Season 5! Stay in the loop by following us on social media and signing up for our newsletters at www.returningtojoy.com.


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Transcript

Gabrielle Leonard: 14:14:01

Welcome to the return to joy podcast. I'm your host, Gabrielle Michel Leonard. Here we're leading people to cultivate joy through storytelling. We hope listening will reveal pathways to unlocking the healing power of connection, so that you can see your relationships and the world around you transformed from fractured into flourishing. With sub beloved's, it is the final episode of this season. And so the final episode for this year, and then gonna go on break. But I'm really excited about this. I'm excited about this conversation, we're going to have to really wrap up this discussion we've had on rest. And hopefully you've been challenged encouraged, you're thinking differently, you're asking new questions about what does rest look like in my life? What does participating in Christ's rest for the world for my community look like? How do I enter into that rest? And how do I invite other people into it, I hope all of those things are swirling around in your head. And for this final conversation, I just wanted to name a couple things that fight against the active rest, that Christ invites us into one of those being efficiency. So earlier today, I was having a conversation with one of my sisters, Ashley Rogers, and she was talking about Jesus feeding the 5000, in a conversation she was having with a group of women about stewardship at this Bible study she was leading. And something that struck me was she was reflecting on how inefficient how Jesus went about feeding this 5000 was, and it was a new outlook and a new way to look at this story. Because when you look at this story, I'm pulling from John chapter six verses one through 14 here, they've just crossed over to the far shore of a sea of Galilee. And there's this great crowd of people that are that have followed to see Jesus perform these different signs and wonders and to see him heal the sick, right? And they're looking at this multitude in the disciples, Philip says, like, hey, like, where we're gonna go to buy bread for these people to eat. And then Jesus, Jesus tests him a little bit and says, like, basically, well, you know, you feed them, he, he's asking them to feed the people. And Phillips, like, it would take more than half a year's wages to buy enough bread for each one of these folks to to eat. And so it's like, we need to let them leave, we need them to be able to go because they gotta get food, right and nourishment. And we don't have it, we don't we don't have the resources in order to do it. And something that I want to highlight here is they saw the need, they weren't blind to the needs of these people that they were with. And so I think that that's probably true of yourself, where you're seeing needs around you, whether it be your own needs, needs among your, in your family, or in your community, you see the need, right. But here's the thing that I want to call out that if you've read this story, before, you might have not noticed that I'm being really encouraged by is, there is a sight of the need. But for these disciples to see that small boy, come on, you got a huge crowd of people we don't we don't know what's all happening in this story. We don't know if that little boy was right there in the front. Like if, if the disciples are huddled up with Jesus, and they just look to the left, and here's a little boy going like, Hey, can I give you some food, and they're like, Oh, we want to do it. This is all we got. We don't know. It's actually a very, like Jewish practice to imaginatively engage with the scriptures. And so if you can visualize what's happening, if you can picture in your mind this scene, remember, it's quite counted as 5000 people. But this 5000 is not including women and children. So there are 10s of 1000s of people here in this crowd. Like, who knows how many and I don't know about you, but like, I'm not easily recognizing a little boy carrying a basket of five loaves and two fish. Right? And we don't know how long did it take them to find this little boy. But here's the thing that my friend was saying, that really struck me finding that little boy required slowing down and it required site, slowing down and it required site. We can see the needs of what's needed, but what's not there can overwhelm us can create a panic. But learning a practice of active rest will have you slowing down and when you slow down, you'll find where actually what you need is present among you. What you need is present is there and then you can pull from that and go back to the Lord and go hey, what do you want to do with what we have right here in our hands. But that requires a skill slowing down, that requires a going out in searching and seeking that requires what I believe it's, I believe is rest, an active form of rest. See Jesus, when he's talking about, you know, the popular verse that we very much so refer to Matthew 11, when he talks about like, Come to me all you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. That's a powerful statement, powerful verse, But I'm struck by and there's a lot of great context around this whole entire chapter in the chapters next to it. But I'm so struck by literally right after that, it says, 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 for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. There is to me there is not better a description of what is active rest, then this little chunk right here. Because when we think about come to me all you are weary and burdened, I will give you rest, I'm not gonna lie, I think about like, Okay, Lord, will You then cradle me and let me you know, sit at your feet and be at peace, maybe I'm gonna massage you can include that can include me, probably my feet up can include spending some time in prayer can even include resting glute can include solitude, all of these things are good. And I do think all of those things are restful. But I'm what I'm struck by, is the fact that Jesus has his yoke is easy. His burden is light. This is the man who suffered and died for the world. This is the man who he came into this world bearing are missing the mark, our failure, our lack of obedience, our lack of trust, our separation from God are our sinfulness like this is the man who suffered for us, for us to have this restored relationship with God. Even before that we're talking about the like constantly experiencing of being misunderstood, constantly experiencing the suffering of people, Jesus was weeping at the oppressive nature of this of the systems around them. Rome was oppressive. This this empire of Rome was detrimental, like evil, and unjust. He's Jesus walking around seeing this and carrying all of it, as one who is so familiar and connected to us. And he had compassion, he's carrying all of that. He's seeing the need, if you want to talk about someone seeing the need, seeing the brokenness, and also Jesus should be overwhelmed. He has a right to being overwhelmed. I mean, he, I mean, he, he's suffered to the point of sweating blood in the garden. And so we're talking about someone who, who gets the pressure, of expectation, the pressure of what is available versus what is needed. Like he's seen it in the world pain, and injustice. But yet he's saying, Come to me all you are weary and burdened, I'll give you rest. What is his wrestled? Like he's talking about, like, 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 for my yoke is easy. My burden is light. What yoke is easy, what burden is light. So we know, Moses even going to be prescriptive about this and tell you what all that means. It's worth digging in. Because what kind of rest is Jesus describing? If he's then beginning to talk about himself and saying, learn from me and how I'm doing this? Learn from me. This is not just about coming to Jesus, and then him just, hey, here's some rest for you. Here's shalom, here's peace. Here's joy. Here's the fruits of the Spirit given to you through the work of the Holy Spirit. This is also like, we're to learn how is he moving in the world? How was Christ moving? And how is that restful? How was that light? How was that coming with ease? Because if I'm honest, like I'm like, Man, I think he endured a whole lot. But I can move through the world and be like this. This doesn't seem like you can do this. You can participate in brokenness, you can participate in fighting against injustice, you can participate and trying to see the kingdom of God come and not be overwhelmed or burdened or weary. It feels like that fights each other. But Christ is going no, it's possible. Learn from me. So I'm curious. I'm curious. I don't know what that means. But I'm curious to know, what are you doing different? How's your rest different Lord? I know one thing that stands out to me is I know and John five, Jesus says, I only do what I see My Father doing. So I know that, okay, Jesus has to be walking in a way that's constantly in tune, constantly going, Hey, I'm seeing what's right in front of me, but I also have this I mean, in touch with what are you saying, God? What are you doing? All of my senses are heightened in aware to the Father, all of my senses are heightened and aware to the creator of the universe. So Jesus, like I see the pain, I see the suffering, I'm not distant from it. I'm not pulled back. I'm not withholding. I'm not out of out of sight, out of mind. No, Christ came into the world dwelt among us. So he's in the pain and suffering. But he's also connected. All of him in tune with the Father, and going out what are you doing? My lord? What are you doing, father? So what does it look like for you to walk attune to God? It's worth exploring, I believe one of those ways is slowing down. You can't walk a tune when you're moving fast. I think it's a slowed pace that sees the five loaves of bread in the two small fish. Sometimes the disciples, they get a bad rap for this passage, right in John six, because they're like, you know, we only got this, what we're gonna do with this, but I want to give them some credit. I want to give them some flowers in this moment. Because, yes, they still saw insufficiency, they still saw it, they still saw lack. But the boy was found the five loaves of bread, and the two fishes nonetheless, were seen somebody had to walk slow enough to see them. And think about it, you got your mom, 5000 people, we give them we give them a little like this cred for being for saying what we're gonna do with this. But the fact that they even brought it to Jesus, I don't know about you. But if I'm scared about asking a dumb question, if I'm scared enough, I'm opening my mouth. I'm not saying nothing. I'm not saying nothing. So even that, like, Hey, we got this here. There was faith there. I believe there was faith there. We know how many times Jesus operated in response to someone's faith. And I would say that whoever found that five loaves of bread and two fish with this little boy actually did have some faith, the faith enough to bring it to Jesus and go, what about this? They also had uncertainty and doubt. But there was enough for Jesus to do something with that. And so slowing down, looking at what you see, and asking the Lord, what do you want to do with this? It's so inefficient, it's contrary to other ways, other methods that we know how to move in the world, right? To we want to go okay, I see 5000 people, and I see 5000 loaves of bread. And so this is the way to do it. But it's contrary to go. Let me go looking. Let me slow down. Let me see what we're not recognizing as provision. And then put that in the Masters hands. I want to give you an example of this in current, you know, flesh and blood through a man that I deeply admire a guy named STS. He's the owner of ball hogs barbecue here in San Antonio on the east side. And I see streets demonstrate this, there is nothing. I mean, it's in a great way, there's nothing efficient, I would say about the way that streets is mentoring these kids that he employs at his barbecue restaurant that he intentionally employs, there's nothing efficient about it, that would be the last word that I would use to describe how he's mentoring and investing in their lives. We wouldn't call it efficient. But you know, what I'd say there is there is few places, few people that I think is doing more impactful work when it comes to mentoring kids in an under resourced area of a city street says in my mind is like, man, that dude is top notch, you need to be teaching, people need to be paying him money to show them the way in so many ways. And something that streets mentioned to me yesterday, or at this table that I was facilitating, he was talking about sometimes, you know, what he'll do with the kids is like, let's say if he's at the at the shop, and he's got to go right, make a bank run, he'll just look around and be like, Hey, does anybody need anybody needs to have a bank account? Yaga bank accounts, and they're like, oh, maybe let me win? Maybe I do. Maybe I don't, whatever. And so whoever doesn't have a bank account, okay, all right. Come ride with me to go to the bank, I hope you set one up, and he makes it so he doesn't make this big grandstanding. You know, deal about it real comfortable, real cool, like, and we'll take these kids with them to the bank. And streets would say he's not running this business for profit. He's not running this business for money. He's running this business to deeply invest and empower these kids that he believes in and knows that they have what it takes to do whatever they want to do in life because they are somebody's and I'm just thinking about there's nothing efficient about that. Some of us have great intentions, great things we want to do in the world. But our need and demand for efficiency prevents us from actually getting there from actually doing it. Because think about it, how many kids she just pulled from the restaurant in order to just do life with them and take them to this bank and help them set up a bank account. How much ta added time is he put into his schedule by not just making a quick run to the bank and coming back and saying, oh, you know what, I'll set up a financial literacy course for them or a cloud, we'll do a financial literacy class, on an on a certain day. That's how we would function right? Because and then we'll just get all the kids there that's more efficient. But streets, the slowness of his pace has made him recognize, yeah, that might seem more efficient. But that's not how you reach these kids. You walk with them in life, you make it a part of their life, hey, we're just I'm just writing to the bank, you want to come with me? That's not efficient. But that's powerful. That's connected. Let's go in, hey, what do I have right here, that actually will have a multiplying effect? If I apply it in the right way, if I use it in the right way. And I was just thinking, like, I'm just like, Man, I learned from this man so often in these common different conversations and spaces, because I'm going, what you're doing is literally inactive rest. It is an act of rest. And it is pushing back, it is resisting societal norms. It is creating systemic change, is creating generational change. And how is he doing that? Why is he doing that? He is slowing down. And you don't have generational impact without slowing down. I thoroughly believe that we're talking about Jesus is someone who had 12 disciples, yeah, crowds, large, massive crowds, follow them around or whatever. But he invested slowly in deeply in 12, folks, and we're still talking about this man named Jesus, who is the Messiah, we're still being impacted by the way that Jesus walked on this earth and what he did for us, we're still talking about it in his ministry, which I'm gonna go into a little quick tangent there. I was rewriting some content on the return to joy website, and finally writing the story behind returning to joy, like, what does that name come from? And something that I said was in this on this one line, I taught him I mentioned ministry, and then that made me think what is ministry as a ministry is obedience to God. And we first see the demonstration of good ministry from Jesus. So we've made ministry that even that term becomes something so big and an almost unreachable for some folks that when we say like, Oh, these folks administer these can't, like we've made it this really big concept. And it's so simple. Ministry is obedience to God. Because what did Jesus said he was doing? He said, I only do what I see My Father doing. And that requires slowing down that requires listening, that requires actually being in tune with what is my Father doing? See, we want to put we want to set up systems around everything, and create whole programs and have a structure and in all these different things we're like, so that way we can be in control and we can and we can duplicate but, but honestly, I think sometimes we're duplicating ourselves. And I mean, look around the systems we've created out here in the world ain't that great? But I'm being challenged even with like, man, what does it look like to live my life day by day? and say, Man, I'm trying to be obedient to God, I'm trying to be in tune I'm trying to walk with I'm trying to walk with. And then from that lens ministry looks pretty big. But yeah, ministry can simply be kind of where we're coffee shop, am I going to show up at today? Where am I going to eat today, ministry can be sitting with your kids, and playing that video game. ministry can be walking down a street that you would normally not walk down, just to be present and proximate. See what you bump into, you get to get to chat with smile at ministry can be preaching and teaching. The ministry can also simply be showing up with someone when they're in pain. It can simply be sitting in someone's presence who's grieving. It can be loving a friend Well, it takes on all these different forms. And I believe that if we really want to live in the world, and have impact from a place of active rest, then we learn how to listen to God and do what we hear, see, feel him doing? We go like, what are you doing? I want to do that too. I want to participate in it. It's not efficient, but it's holy. It's beautiful. It's what builds Shalom. It's what like creates wholeness in the world. It's not dependent upon us. One other place where I want to demonstrate this a point this out is with the Good Samaritan story. You can find it on Luke nine. But it's interesting I was at this the Civil Rights tour and Allah Bama. And on the Civil Rights tour, the guy Ben McBride, who leads in power initiative, he was facilitating the space. And he talked about a good Samaritan story. But more specifically talked about in an experiment that was done with a group of ministers, pastors, just different people lay people that were in a room talking about this Good Samaritan story, they heard all about it right? And unpacked it some more. And then essentially, a situation was staged that mirrored in modern day, that good Samaritan story with someone being in in need, that was in the route, that was an obstruction between where they were at, let's say, point B, and point A, where they were trying to go. And they found that pretty much like none of them still, they didn't stop, even though they just had a conversation about the Good Samaritan story, they still didn't stop to help this person would have been was was showing us demonstrating to us as a takeaway is that knowing truth doesn't change things. Knowing is not enough. We have to have rhythms and practices in our lives that cause us to slow down. Because even though you know what is good, even though you know what is right, even though you know what is true about people, that children of God made in His image that Jesus is Lord, He is faithful, we are called to participate in his kingdom here on earth, knowing that truth does not mean you're going to participate in change. Knowing there is rest, there is an active rest that God provides does not mean you're going to experience it, knowing that the Lord's yoke is easy. And His burden is light does not mean you're going to experience that knowing that he is patient. He's humble, he's lowly, he draws nearer to the oppressed, he's on the side of the eye of the poor, doesn't mean you're going to be on the side of the poor. Knowing these truths about God, knowing these truths about how God wants to participate in your life, or in the life of other people, does not mean that you are going to participate in change, knowing truth doesn't change things alone. Even though they knew the truth, they still participated in the same wrong that they were just talking about, as they reflect on the Good Samaritan story and Luke nine and why did they participate in the song, same wrong? Because they were in a hurry? And so then they became just like, the things that they were calling out as evil or wrong? Or in just did they themselves did that very same thing? How do we avoid this? We found that slowing down is the way to do so. So what forms of resistance need to be in your life? How are you going to slow down? See, the two things I'm trying to highlight here that are resistance to this active rest that we want to participate in in the world is efficiency and pace? So how are you going to slow down? How are you going to mirror the way of Jesus? Who says he only did what he saw his father doing? How are you going to in Jesus's words in Matthew 11, verse 29, take his yoke upon him and learn from him for his gentle and humble in heart, so that you may find rest for your souls. Again, remember this learning from him and seeing like, Oh, he's gentle. He's humble in heart. It didn't look like an activity. I mean, Jesus was busy out here. He was busy in the streets. He was he was busy, we can all account for that. And he was enduring a lot. So what kind of arrest was it that Christ was participating in that he has to offer us? That would actually be medicine for our weary souls as we participate in this world, and seeking to bring his kingdom here on earth as is and heaven. I hope this series on recce set you up for further conversation further unpacking. Because I'm not trying to be prescriptive and tell you like this is what it is. Man that would be bold and wild of meat, but it's more so of like, Man, I hope that you are encouraged and stirred to go digging. Discover what is rest what is Kingdom rest, the rest that God provides. Thank you Beloved's for listening to this final episode. I'm really excited that we just got to be with each other. And we're going to be going on break. So I will not you will not see another episode until March. And I know it's kind of distant but it's intentional. Trying to really focus in the next couple of months on developing resources. So please, please please please, if you haven't already, make sure you're subscribed to this podcast so that way you will remember and you'll you'll get a notification when a new one pops up. Right you'll see that you want to subscribe to our website and make sure you are on the email list there because I will send out an email newsletter whenever our podcasts It picks back up next year. But also i'll be sending out emails to let you know of resources that are available. Man. The goal here is we're trying to create very intentional, curated pathways towards wholeness helping people cultivate joy in their life and in their community. And so want to make that really want to provide guides that really help people do that in a practical way. And so, if that's you, make sure you go to our website and you subscribe, so that way you can be notified. Also peruse around the website, a little bit is received an update. It's it looks very different, very, very different. And we're continuing to improve on things along the way, but it's been a joy to be with you. These last seven episodes. As always, Blessings to you love you all for listening, grateful for this opportunity to have to encourage you by Beloved's I'll see you back in March.