I Have Seen the Enemy…and He is Anxious Toil
Freedom, Total Freedom…
“It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” —- Psalm 127:2
Mmmmmm…. Can we sit with this for a minute?
“The bread of anxious toil…”
There is a way of being, says God, that is void of anxious toil;
Presence, abiding, walking by faith. In Him.
How cool that Jesus paid the price for anxious toil.
Anxious toil is the enemy that appeared in the garden after the man gave his authority to the snake.
Anxious toil was paid for when Jesus took it (with our sin) into His body on the cross and paid for it.
He bought us peace, rest, and the freedom to be free indeed.
He did not remove the need to work—-on our careers, our homes, our families, our ministries…our hopes, our dreams, our bodies, our communities….
Because, work was there before the fall and will be there on the New Earth (I believe).
You and I must be careful not to make freedom a work to accomplish. Sometimes, when I hear I should be free in Christ, I focus on the “should” part and get a twitch. A “should” is never good (I didn’t mean to rhyme, but I’m glad I did).
Instead, we get to hear this as a blessing, good news, Jesus paid it all. Nothing we do now is to secure our worth, our identity, or our home in Heaven.
It’s just us putting together the kind of life God created for us to live: joyfully productive, creative, beneficial to the world, and affirming of Life itself. This is image-bearing stuff.
Let’s rest in Him as we compile a list of our truest values, callings, and desires and learn to focus, focus, and refocus so that we are restfully living the lives God imagined when He knit us together so carefully in our mother’s womb.
I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy for the reader today! God bless you and enjoy your life. Let’s Keep Talking About Freedom
Love this. Great perspective. This reminds me of an old acronym: BUSY— Being Under Satan's Yoke.
My wife and I are undertaking a very difficult move right now and it is so easy to become overwhelmed-just what the enemy wants-with anxious toil, which steals our rest physically but more important spiritually. There is no peace in toiling at the oars of a boat in the middle of a stormy lake. But of course the anxiety is in the storm itself. Peace, rest comes from the Master, who wants us to learn from Him how to rest and be calm in the storm.
Still learning.
Great message for today. This spoke to me about how anxious toil was paid for on the Cross.