The Ground Is Resting And I Am Not

You let that ground rest without thinking about it.

Nobody had to persuade you. You know why it is done, you do it on schedule, and if a neighbor questioned it you would explain the reasoning without a trace of doubt.

Ground needs a season off. That is not controversial to you. It is simply how soil works and you have known it for forty years.

And you have not taken an hour off on purpose since you can remember.

You are owed the same mercy you give that ground, and a rule that applies to soil has never once stopped applying at the gate.

Let me put the comparison plainly, because I think it does the work of this article on its own.

You hold a principle about rest. You hold it confidently. You apply it to ground, to machinery, probably to animals if you have any, and to other people, and you would think a man foolish who ran a field or an engine continuously without a break.

And the principle has one exception in it, and the exception is you.

And it is not a small exception or a reluctant one. It is total. The principle simply does not extend to the man applying it, and it has never once occurred to you as an inconsistency.

Come ye yourselves apart and rest

There is a moment in Mark where men who have been working are sent away, and the details around it are what give it force.

And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. (Mark 6:31, King James Version)

Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while.

Now, notice who says it and to whom. This is Jesus, to men who have just come back from working, and the working was real and necessary and successful.

He does not tell them to finish first. He does not suggest they rest once the coming and going has slowed down.

You are looking at working men being sent away mid-demand, and rest has never once been issued in that passage only after the work was done. Mark 6:31 sends them off while there were many coming and going, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land on a man who has not taken an hour on purpose in years.

And notice the reason given. For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.

The reason for the rest is the pressure, not the absence of it. The busyness is the argument for going away rather than the argument against it, which is the exact inversion of how a working man reasons.

You are being given the pressure as the reason rather than the obstacle, and a busy season has never once been the grounds for refusing rest in that verse. The Holy Spirit is the one who reverses a working man's logic, and the written word names the crowds as the reason for leaving rather than for staying.

And there is the phrase come ye yourselves apart, which is worth having. Yourselves.

It is emphatic. Not send somebody, not arrange for things to be quieter, not get the work to a point where it can be left. You yourselves. Bodily. Away.

You are the one being sent rather than the one making arrangements, and the word yourselves has never once pointed at anybody but the man hearing it. The Spirit of God is the one doing the sending, and the word puts the emphasis on the person rather than on the conditions.

Where the exception came from

Let me say something about the exception, because I think it has a history and naming it helps.

A man who works ground learns that the ground has requirements and that he has preferences.

The ground needs a season. That is a requirement, and requirements get respected. What the man needs is filed differently, as something he would like, and a thing a man would like comes after everything that is required.

And over forty years that filing hardens, and by the end of it the man genuinely does not have requirements, as far as his own reckoning goes.

You have been filing yourself under preferences rather than requirements, and a man's own need for rest has never once been a matter of what he would like. The Holy Spirit is the one who moves a man into the right category, and Mark 6:31 issues rest as an instruction rather than as an offer.

And here is the thing that I think will reach you, because it is in the terms you actually use.

You would never run a machine the way you run yourself. You service things. You let the engine cool. You would tell a younger man off for working a piece of equipment continuously and you would be right to.

The inconsistency is not a moral failing. It is simply that the principle has one blind spot in it, and the blind spot has been there so long that it does not look like one.

You are applying a sound principle everywhere except one place, and a rule with a single exception in it has never once been a rule that somebody examined recently. The Spirit of God is the one who puts a man inside his own rule, and the written word has the instruction addressed directly to the workers themselves.

One hour, and tell nobody it is rest

So here is the assignment, and the second half is the part that makes it work.

Take one hour off on purpose and tell nobody it is rest.

One hour. Sit on the bench, sit in the truck, sit in the kitchen. Nothing in your hands and nothing being done.

You are able to give yourself one hour under your own authority, and sixty minutes taken deliberately has never once been sixty minutes that a man stole from anybody. Mark 6:31 sends working men away to rest a while, and the Holy Spirit is the one on that bench with a man doing nothing for an hour.

And tell nobody it is rest. That is deliberate and I will say why.

Because if you announce it, it becomes a thing that needs justifying, and you will justify it, and the justification will be about getting more done afterward or about the doctor or about your wife having said something.

And every one of those converts the rest back into maintenance, which is the category it has been living in, and the whole point is to take an hour that is not for anything.

You are taking an hour that is not in service of anything else, and rest taken without a reason has never once needed to be accounted for to anybody. The Holy Spirit is the one present in an hour that has no purpose attached, and the word says rest a while without naming an outcome for it anywhere.

And if somebody asks what you are doing, say you are sitting down. That is true and it is sufficient and it is not a justification.