We can breeze past this devotion thinking: “Ya, ya, I know that I need to rest.” But, there is more here.
Notice how the apostles (disciples) were the ones who “did not even have time to eat” and that it was Jesus Who made them get away to rest. This Scripture should encourage us that Jesus takes good care of us and makes us rest from time to time.
” Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28
But, even beyond the invitation, Jesus makes us rest. “1 The LORD is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
3 He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.” (Emphasis added.) Psalm 23:1-3.
I have read somewhere that sheep sometimes tend to want to stand up longer than they should and that a shepherd has to actually make them lie down. Whether or not that is true, I can not independently confirm. But, most of us have direct experience with young children. We know that they tend to want to stay up later than they should, and we must make them go to bed to lie down and sleep to get their needed rest.
We can thank God for His provision of the Sabbath. If we were left to our own wisdom to decide how often that we would take a whole day off from work, it is unlikely that we would choose to rest as much as once every seven days. We know through Scripture and throughout history how often man has resisted obedience to this command.
Beyond even one day a week, think of the “seasons” of our lives. God could have made us develop much quicker into working adults and stay that way much longer, but He made us to go through years of first being a baby, then a small child, then a teenager (who are sometimes immature or even rebellious), and only thereafter a working adult. And then, at the end of our lives, God made us to age into the elderly who need to rest more even to the point of full retirement from some types of work (although we can still “yield fruit in old age” Psalm 92:14).
There are also periods within our prime working adult lives that God “makes us lie down”. Sometimes, God provides vacations or Sabbaticals where we intentionally take extended period of times off. Sometimes, God causes us to unintentionally take time off such as intermissions between jobs. I think of my time of five months in Gainesville, Georgia in 1997 as one of those times. We moved permanently to my wife’s hometown, but I did not find the employment that I sought and we also missed St. Petersburg, Florida, so five months later we moved back home to St. Petersburg, Florida. This time turned out to be a period of time for great rest. I also put together my Gold Mining book at that time. Click here: Gold Mining « Reformed Doctrine Blog
Sometimes, God uses even sickness as an extreme measure when we are fighting against taking needed time off. God “makes us lie down” by using that sickness.
It may help us to be more willing to lie down, without the necessity of sickness to make us lie down, when we consider that God made us like trees to bear fruit in its season. “He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.” Psalm 1:3. I have a grapefruit tree in my backyard, and I can tell you that it only yields fruit once a year bearing ripe fruit best for picking and eating in the coldest time of the year around December through February.
In conclusion, obviously, we do not want to use these examples as an excuse for laziness. We also do not want to negate nor minimize the importance of different kinds of work that we can do, even as a young child at home or even as an old adult in a nursing home. But rather, we can consider these examples as encouragement that God provides times for rest, even extended periods of rest, for which we should be more cognizant and more willing to gratefully accept. Thank you.
Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions 