Daily Lesson for March 8, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 6 verses 30 and 31:

30 The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. 31He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ 

Last week I was talking with someone out in the narthex. “It’s been a long week,” they said, “and it’s only Wednesday.”

“Actually, it’s only Tuesday,” I said. 

We have been busy doing the Lord’s work. It’s good work. But it is also hard and tiring work. It can make two days in the week feel like five. 

“Come away . . . and rest awhile,” Jesus said. Those are just the words we need to hear round about Spring Break time. We need a break because the pace we are keeping is unsustainable.

It is time for us all to take a break. Even those who don’t get Spring Break need to take one. We all need to take time to rest, to pray, to be quiet and think. We need time for our brains to go fallow for awhile. 

My guide and friend Tom likes to quote an African proverb:  “We have to sit down and rest in order to give time for our souls to catch up with our bodies.”

Church work is hard work. Activism is always demanding. There’s always somebody else who needs a human touch. There’s always another good fight to be taken up. We aren’t there yet. 

But God is still working — even when we are not. God is still holding the world up. The seeds we have already planted are growing of themselves under the earth and will burst forth from the ground in their due time.

Let’s trust the earth.  Let’s trust the seed. Let’s learn to trust God for the increase — for the change. 

Let’s come away and rest awhile.