The Stillness of September and the Virtue of Rest

There’s a stillness in September.  Have you ever sensed it?  The birds are not singing in the wee hours of dawn.  The insects get really quiet in the afternoon.  The pollinators flit around, but they are silent.  Things are still growing, but they are really slowing down.  The nights are cool and quiet.  July and August are full of summer activity, and October weather gets everyone invigorated.  But in September, people seem to settle into a school schedule, sit outside on their porches, take walks in the evening, maybe build a backyard bonfire.  We rest more (except for the football and soccer people).  

We’ve now come to the end of September.  But I want us to pick and propagate that one beautiful bloom of September and cultivate it into the remaining months.  Let us remember rest as a virtue, not a vice, from the perspective of God.  He actually ordered us to do it once, but somehow our “Christian work ethic” choked it out of the garden of godly virtues, creating space for every weed of busyness and ambition and hurry to run rampant and take over the garden.  

This passage in Isaiah tells us what happens when we misunderstand what God intended.   

“God will speak to this people, 

to whom he said, 

‘This is the resting place, let the weary rest”; 

and “This is the place of repose” –

but they would not listen.  

So then, the word of the Lord to them will become:

Do and do, do and do,

rule on rule, rule on rule;

a little here, a little there –

so that they will go and fall backward,

be injured and snared and captured.

Isaiah 28:11-13

God meant for the people to rest, to rejuvenate, to develop relationship with Him, but they wouldn’t listen.  So their relationship with Him never really developed: it just became a religion of following rules.  They were snared and captured.

Two chapters later, God again addresses their lack of trust in Him that is manifested in their not resting.

“In repentance and rest is your salvation,

in quietness and trust is your strength,

but you would have none of it.

You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’

Therefore, you will flee!

You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’

Therefore your pursuers will be swift!. . . .

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;. . . .

Blessed are all who wait for Him!

Isaiah 30:15-18

If the Israelites had waited for God to rescue them, He would have done it, like He did at the Red Sea when they felt like easy prey while Pharaoh closed in on them.   But here, they couldn’t do it.  They fled.  The result, God explains to them, is that they will now be pursued, not protected.  

How sad to live a life of rules and constant work and being chased by your enemies when God had so much better in mind.  It makes me wonder what I am doing that’s a parallel.  What’s the work I won’t rest from?  What rules have I set up to follow that keep me from just enjoying God?  What am I running from that God would protect me from if I would just rest and trust Him? Where am I snared and captured?

I want to cultivate the spirit of the September stillness into the next seasons.