Rest and Restlessness

 August 11, 2022

I’ve always thought Psalm 95 a bit odd. It begins in wonderful praise and worship:

“Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! 

Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. 

Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; 

Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. 

For the Lord is the great God, 

And the great King above all gods…

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; 

Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. 

For He is our God, 

And we are the people of His pasture, 

And the sheep of His hand…”

—Psalm 95:1-3, 6-7 

Beautiful, uplifting words, suddenly cut short with,

Today, if you will hear His voice: 

“Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, 

As in the day of trial in the wilderness, 

When your fathers tested Me; 

They tried Me, though they saw My work. 

For forty years I was grieved with that generation, 

And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, 

And they do not know My ways.’ 

So I swore in My wrath, 

‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ””

—Psalm 95:7-11 

It almost gives you literary whiplash to hear this warning so close on the heels of such lofty praise. For years, I couldn’t understand this startling transition…until this morning. The warning, “Don’t harden your heart,” is for me. How do I harden my heart? When I fail to worship and bow down. Praise and worship keep my heart pliable. 

Too often, like the Isrealites, I follow after my own thoughts. When I fail to praise, I am keeping God at arm’s length, testing him to see if he will chase after me as I go astray in my heart. Only praise teaches me God’s ways. Choosing to meditate on my own thoughts is tantamount to rebellion, and keeps me from entering God’s rest. This is not mere armchair theoretical stuff; my wandering thoughts never bring rest to my soul.

“Today, if you will hear his voice” (V.7). Worship and praise is where we hear God’s voice.  Scripture is where God’s voice comes; worship is how I hear it. Worship requires turning from my ways and thoughts and focusing on God’s ways and works.

It isn’t fashionable these days to speak of God’s wrath, but this Psalm isn’t quite so discreet. Testing God by attending to my thoughts rather than his incurs his wrath, manifested in restlessness. The endless chasing after the next high, the next job, the next man or woman, the next million is sad testimony to the wrath of God who said, “There is no rest for the wicked” (Isaiah 57:20).

If I am restless, anxious and fretting about tomorrow, it is an indication of sin and rebellion—the refusal to enter into the rest that comes with meditating upon God’s Word. “Rest in the Lord” is not a suggestion; it’s a command, and refusal to do the work of getting there is a sin. Restlessness is both a condition and a warning. Repentance is the way back into God’s rest.