What's Keeping You Up At Night?

What’s keeping you up at night?  Do you feel the grip of anxiety over money or future security when you try to sleep?  Do you feel shame over your lack of status or place in society?  Does guilt hang over you for past sins or how you never measure up? Do you dread the future, the uncertainty, all the possible worst-case scenarios?

Then you may be following an idol.  This is the startling news my friend Shawn Baldwin delivered to our Sunday School class from his study of Exodus. He asked:  How do we know if we are following idols?  

If we know God, we have peace and rest.  We are not anxious over money or status or goodness or the future.  God has promised to take care of all that for us.  

So if we don’t have peace and rest, there are things – powers of some sort – driving us that are not of God.  If we are gripped with these anxieties, we are placing our allegiance or faith in something besides God.  

This idea took me aback.  I feel plenty of anxiety, and I recognized the truth of what Shawn said.  

Then I read this verse in Isaiah 46:1 this morning:  “Their idols are borne by beasts of burden. The images that are carried about are burdensome, a burden for the weary.”

Any god we have besides Yahweh God is a burden and requires more than we can deliver.  We will be weary with those gods.  Remember Jesus promised “my yoke is easy and my burden is light”?

Let me show you that passage in another translation.  Sometimes when we see something familiar phrased a new way, we see it for the first time.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11: 28-30

This idea is intertwined with the theme of rest and stillness in the last post on this blog.  If you didn’t read it and you’re struggling with this idea of rest and peace, just go back one post and consider the ideas there in light of this post.