Time to write a post about our soulful escape to Viewscape last June 5 and 6.

Among 20 photos, I selected the above as the most captivating because of the unusual color of the sky.

The weather is not as good as last year. You will see the sky is cloudy. Upon arrival, we were greeted by rain. Thinking that tents could not protect us from rain, we decided to rent rooms.

Last year, the sky was different. Every passing minute, we witnessed the changing colors of the sky.

The above photo was taken after our dinner. While waiting for dinner, our president shared his reflection on Mark 6:30-31. He appreciated the employees' services and emphasized the importance of rest and the beauty of God's revelation both in nature and Scripture.

Both my brother-in-law and my sister were uncomfortable with the Nipa hut that we rented. The comfort room is too far, and so they decided to change rooms.

We transferred to the Edge. The room is pricey but very comfortable. There were free slippers, a toothbrush, and toothpaste, and the towels were provided.

The handsome gentlemen above are our hardworking maintenance team: Gerry and Jose.

The following day, we enjoyed swimming and sharing stories for more or less two hours.

After swimming, we rested for an hour and then packed up our things and went ahead to BNK Cafe and Resto for our lunch.

This is our last group photo before going back home to Bulacan and Cavite.

Let me conclude this post with an extended reflection about the importance of rest. I intend to use this message for our school prayer meeting this coming Thursday. The text is from Matthew 11:28-30:

28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

I first published this message in my WordPress blog on October 14, 2012.

To introduce my topic, I mentioned inflation. That's the beauty of autobiographical blogging; you will gain a historical perspective. Imagine the time I updated this devotion, I was complaining for an 11 reduction in the number of HIVE (from 45 to 34) that my 1,000.00 PHP could buy. That shows a huge drop in the value of the Philippine peso.

This time it's different. Last night, when I bought HIVE, the same amount could purchase 316 HIVE. For those who still believe in the long-term prospect of the network, this is an occasion for celebration. Imagine 282 additional units of HIVE with the same amount of PHP. This tells a different story. Cryptocurrency like HIVE is dropping faster than fiat money such as PHP. No wonder many are restless and despondent now.

The point is financial devaluation, either in fiat or in crypto, is depressing and causes anxiety.

I asked the same question that I asked before:

In a time when many people are stressed (financially, mentally, emotionally, and psychologically), where can we find rest?

Even though this message is old, I still find it very relevant to me personally and I think to many who also suffer financial distress.

Let me share an old article about stress:

On November 16, 2010, Kevin Spak of Newser wrote an article, “And the World’s Most Stressed People Are…" He said that almost everybody is stressed-out even though no one wins in this “Stress Olympics”. Quoting the “Daily Beast”, Spak shares diverse stress studies. He said that based on unemployment, crime rate, and other economic indicators, Detroit is the most stressed-out city. The most stressful jobs are firefighters, followed by corporate executives. He suggests that if you want a low-stress career, why not try taking a course on musical instrument repair? Generation X (those born from 1965 to the early 1980s) is the most stressed-out generation characterized by emotions of anger and irritability.

In this extended conclusion, I just want to revisit how to overcome a stressful life by finding rest in Jesus.

The questions below remain timely:

How is your life? How is your career? How about your studies and your relationships? Are they sources of joy and happiness to you? Or are they becoming sources of stress and anxiety for you? Are you happy and satisfied with how your life turned out? How to find spiritual rest in the midst of a stressful world? What are the qualities of the kind of rest that we can enjoy in Jesus?

Rest in Jesus is a gift made accessible to those who come to Him in a simple act of faith.

Here's how I explained this insight:

Jesus simply said, “Come to me.” It is a simple act of faith. It is a call of rest from a person who is full of himself to become a person full of Jesus. A person full of himself will never come to Jesus and will never experience gospel rest. Self-centered men and women are restless, anxious, and angry. A person must be converted from being self-centered to a Jesus-centered kind of life for him or her to experience real and genuine rest.

And here's how I applied it:

People become weary when they refuse to come to Jesus and instead, make their own “Jesuses”. We are inclined to make “gods” out of things, out of our careers, studies, ambitions, and relationships. In short, we are inclined to make “gods” out of ourselves. As a result of replacing Jesus with all these things, we get tired and restless. But Jesus is inviting us to come to Him. But we refuse His call not until our lives fell into ruin. Then in His grace and due to the working of the Holy Spirit, we finally listen and realize that the paths that we have taken for so long are mistaken and that His call is the right and the only way for us to experience genuine rest for our souls.

I described this simple faith as childlike sureness. Jesus said in John 6:35, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” It shows that if you claim to have responded to the call of Jesus to come to Him and yet you are still weary, burdened, starving, and thirsting, it only shows that you have not really come but are still clinging to your self-made "gods."

Jesus further said, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37). It is clear that the hand of God is behind the lives of those people coming to Jesus. If there is any indication that you keep on drawing near to Jesus, it is but proof that God is at work in your life.

Rest in Jesus cannot be separated from giving our best in Christian service

Here's my exposition of this point:

Jesus said, “Take my yoke.” He said that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. This implies that there is a difficult yoke to carry. In the Bible, the yoke is symbolically used in relation to domination, slavery, and control. It is associated with heavy load and burden.

A brief application:

Man-made yokes are too heavy and difficult to bear and make people weary and burdened. Man-made regulations, social expectations, and economic pressures are loads too heavy for many to carry. That is why most people today need to find rest in Jesus.

And then a concluding exegesis and application:

What is a yoke, by the way? Jesus is a carpenter, and he is familiar with yokes, for he probably made many of them. In the Bible, a literal yoke is a bar of wood that is placed upon animals (especially oxen) for them to carry heavy loads and to farm the field. The idea of using a yoke is to make a heavy load easier to carry. Yoke appears to have a negative meaning and seems to be contrary to the idea of rest. But here a yoke is used to provide rest. Only the yoke of Jesus can supply refreshment and restoration for a weary soul. Taking Jesus’ yoke here simply means becoming his disciple. It requires a committed life that flows from him and to him. It is a life that derives its source from Jesus and is patterned after Jesus. It is a life of committed service.

Rest in Jesus requires lifelong learning

An illustration:

Jesus said, “Learn from me.” Learning is commonly connected to hard work. But the kind of learning Jesus is telling us here is different from the kind of learning that produces tired and weary souls. On August 23, 2007, there was a report from NBC about sources of stress among young people ages 13 – 24 years old. For 18-24-year-olds, jobs and finances are the identified sources of stress. Among 13–17-year-olds, it was academic performance. School is by far the most commonly mentioned source of stress. Teens work hard to excel in school to fulfill their dreams and the hopes of their families. Stress comes from schoolwork and having to do so much with so little time.

And an application:

But here Jesus is offering a different type of learning. It is an invitation to a life of continuous study. This shows that we must retain a teachable attitude throughout our lives as disciples of Jesus. We should never assume that we know it all. We must keep on growing in our knowledge of God through constant study of the Bible. Moreover, we should also learn many things in life from Jesus. We can always learn something from Jesus from all our experiences in life, including difficulties and trials. In the midst of trials, we should always think that God wants us to grow after His likeness. Guard your mind and heart therefore when you are encountering difficulties. Never allow resentment and bitterness to stay in your heart. Ask for forgiveness from the Lord and he will cleanse you from all the impurities in your heart. As you adopt such a mindset, you will keep on growing after the likeness of Jesus.

Conclusion

God does not want His children to carry a heavy burden. God does not want us to look weary like the people of this world. God wants you to have a life that is full, blessed, peaceful, and free from all the anxieties of this world. The Son of God, Jesus our Lord, is inviting each and every one of us to come to Him and receive His gift of rest.

Our rest in Jesus is a gift received by faith, entails giving our best in Christian service, and requires lifelong learning. You can find such rest in the midst of a stressful and anxious world by simply coming to Jesus in faith, taking up his yoke, and learning from Him. No other source in this world can provide this kind of rest.