For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.” Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. (Hebrews 04:03-10, NKJV).
I highlighted (bolded) the start and finish of the passage above to focus on perhaps the loudest cry of the human heart: the desire to rest.
By this I don't necessarily mean cessation from activity, but freedom from worry, stress, and uncertainty.
Even a young child fresh from the womb has needs that equate to worries - food, comfort, quiet, and heights, to name just four- and the range of worry only increases exponentially as the little one matures.
Only in Eden was there no legitimate cause for worry. Since then, nothing but, especially in regard to loved ones under our care.
Then too, if a person is at all concerned with judgment and eternity, to all the stresses of physical survival, add the compulsion to please God, or at least the hope of being able to please God.
The Creator, in His beneficence and mercy, gave us sleep, making it an essential for life, at least post-Fall, so that at least we might gain regular physical rest. But even that need can add to the sum total of things that can be fretted over; just ask an insomniac.
As we age, the effort to survive gets no easier, even if we have been fortunate enough to heap up for ourselves earthly treasure and provision, because maintaining that storehouse of goods adds yet more to the stress level.
The bottom line is this, while we cry out for rest, it eludes us constantly and the longing increases as time passes.
Part of this is God's plan for restoring fellowship between us and Him. Like the Law, weariness is a tutor that shows us our essential helplessness over the things that matter most.
Humans will try anything to rest. Drugs, alcohol, relationships, frenetic physical activity, mind-numbing stimulation - anything - all in a largely futile effort to be assured of entering into a blissful state of freedom from care and worry.
All such attempts result only in fleeting success at best, and futility at worst, until finally, the grave itself is anticipated in moments of exhausted delirium as perhaps a solution. It is no accident most cultures look at the place of burial as the final resting place.
Perhaps the greatest irony and tragedy in all this is that for most humans who have ever been alive, death is the beginning of eternal, irremediable torment, and the epitome of lack of rest. The most harried, hectic, and anxiety-riddled spans of time in life are a sweet picnic in comparison to each and every nanosecond of Hell.
But there is rest to be had, and it was purchased at unimaginable cost - the Savior on the Cross.
The entry price is to become of child of God through faith, for we who have believed do enter that rest, It may not seem so day-to-day, but as children of God, rest is not only our destiny in the life to come, but is part of the down-payment we receive in this life. Why? Because, there remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.
God promised rest to the Children of Israel, but they forfeited that promise through the disobedience of unbelief. Yet the promise remains, and some must enter it in order for God's infallible and inerrant Word to be fulfilled.
And the only way to enter that rest in this life, is to trust in Him and know that He rules over the affairs of all men, and that He cares for us in ways that we cannot know or imagine. This is the only means to attain that peace that passes all understanding that is bequeathed to us now.
And part of that trust also entails the cessation of trying to please Him through any works of our own flesh. This is a crucial aspect of the gospel - the surrendering of all false beliefs that we can somehow earn His approval by any means other than faith in Christ.
No ritual, no sacrifice, not ceremony, no generosity, not good deed of any kind done in our own strength avails us of anything except condemnation. For all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.
But through faith in Him, and only through faith in Him, can the cry of hearts be answered in all His fullness.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10, NKJV).
