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The Well is a guided time with God through prayer and reflection on Scripture. Think of it as your own personal retreat. Brought to you by Saddleback
“Return to your rest, oh my soul, for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.” Psalm 116:7 (NKJV)
Hello and welcome to “The Well”, a spiritual growth podcast from Saddleback Church. My name is Brandon Bathauer and I’m excited to journey with you into words of truth.
Think of this as your own personal retreat. This is your opportunity to spend the next few minutes with the only One who truly refreshes, to find health and rest for your soul.
SLOW DOWN:
To start, find a quiet place, get away from the noise and busy, take a deep breath, and get settled. If you need more time at any point, feel free to hit pause along the way.
(PAUSE)
“Return to your rest, oh my soul, for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.” Psalm 116:7 (NKJV)
How do these words land with you today?
I find this verse to be a powerful barometer to the state of my soul. These words have sat prominently on my desktop for the last 3 months. Not only is it a great reminder, my response to it tells me how I am doing—like how I’m really doing. I believe it can be the same for you.
If I am tired, weary, or beaten up by this world, these words wash over me like a nice warm shower on a cold morning. It is an invitation into the refreshment of his great abundance.
If I am running hard, hustling up a life for myself, building on that feeling of momentum and constant movement that makes me feel in charge and in control, these words irritate like an itchy tag on a shirt. It is a challenge to slow down and function from a different center.
If I am anxiously busy, worried about what might happen if all these plates stop spinning and come crashing down, these words ask for a sacrifice of trust, prying my clenched hand open. It is a call to surrender, trusting that God will provide even when I don’t see it.
If I am functioning from a place of health, these words are like a beautifully confirming deep breath. It is a reminder to continue from within the shadow of the Almighty.
Take stock of the state of your soul. What is going on beneath the surface? How do these words land with you today?
“Return to your rest, oh my soul, for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.”
(PAUSE)
GRATITUDE:
“Return to your rest, oh my soul, for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.” Psalm 116:7 (NKJV)
God’s call for rest can sometimes feel like a pipe dream. Mothers shuttling kids all around the city, counting time backwards all day and generating a military-grade supply chain of food, drink, clothing, and activities don’t much have the opportunity to cease and desist. The middle-level manager balancing the demands of their boss while keeping a team excited and inspired and constantly looking to climb that next ladder rung rightfully knows that rest will mean falling behind your quarterly goals, falling behind your competitors, and even falling behind your upwardly mobile peers. Even the teenager needing to balance various AP classes, extracurriculars, clubs, and social expectations to get ahead or the grandparent seeking to serve their community while serving their kids while helping to raise their grandkids.
Rest sounds great on the surface, until you start really asking why we don’t rest.
Why do you fight rest?
To be clear, the particular kind of rest mentioned in this Psalm is not about stopping. There are plenty of other verses that speak about a healthy rhythm of recharging after running hard, giving and receiving, rising and laying down, working and practicing Sabbath. That type of rest is important and needed. Even God practiced this rest after Creation.
But the rest mentioned here has a different emphasis. It not something you periodically enter into, but somewhere you regularly function from. This same word was used in the story of Ruth. Ruth, an impoverished foreigner widow was left with nothing…no people, no belonging, no security. Imagine the anxiety, the instability, the difficulty in that day. But when Naomi, her mother-in-law hoped for her, she said “My daughter, I must find a resting place for you, where you will be well provided for.” It is the word “resting place” that is used in our verse today. Also translated as home, permanent place, a state of rest. This resting place was found when Ruth chose to marry Boaz, receiving love, acceptance, provision, security, a family to belong to, a people, story, and lineage to attach to.
For the mother shuttling kids around the city: these demands persist. But God offers the good news that they can be carried out from a different center of His bountiful provision.
For the middle manager: what could change if you functioned from enough, from a place of security and abundance, even in your striving?
For all of us: what would it look like if we could carry out our living not from a place of anxiety, of exhaustion, or of struggle, but from a place of rested security? This is what this Psalm invites us into.
(PAUSE)
This verse calls us to live and function from a resting place, a rested security. Why? Because the LORD has dealt bountifully with you. We can call our souls back from exhaustion, back from anxious busyness, back from in-my-own-power striving, BECAUSE of his bountiful provision.
So, take some time now. Reflect on what bountiful provision He has offered in the past.
You may scoff at that question, especially if things do not quite feel bountiful for you right now.
The writer of this Psalm lands at this conclusion not because they are at the height of opulence and comfort, but simply because they escaped a very imminent death. They’re not dead, and so they believe they have been dealt with bountifully.
You are here, you are alive, you have breath in your lungs. Is the present reality not filled with His abundance? The light of the sun on your skin? The taste of the coffee in the morning?
What comes to your mind as you think of his bountiful goodness to you? What abundance has he lavished on you in seasons of plenty in the past? What abundance has he lavished on you in small, overlooked things in the present?
The road to rest is built on the landmarks of His abundance to you. Reflect, then thank Him for his bountiful goodness.
(PAUSE)
EXAMEN:
“Return to your rest, oh my soul, for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.” Psalm 116:7 (NKJV)
The road to rest is built on the landmarks of His abundance to you. Now that we have spent time reflecting on his bountiful provision to us, it is time to call our souls to return to rest.
It takes some time to notice what is going on beneath the surface.
So take a moment to consider…
Where do you sense your soul-- your self beneath the surface--chasing, demanding, anxiously striving, grabbing for?
We all have areas of our lives where we have written stories that seemed true, but are not true. Stories that tell us that things are not secure, that we cannot function from a place of rested security. These may be places of wounding in the past.
They could be areas marked with a sense of scarcity, not abundance.
They could be postures modeled from others that you have inadvertently taken on.
Into these areas, reclaim the truth. God has provided. Not just enough, but bountiful abundance. You are safe to rest…not to give up all effort or determination, but to lay down the anxious striving.
What would it look like for you to take up these words and say to your soul “Return to your rest, oh my soul, for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.”
Before God, consider whatever areas your soul is not living in restful security.
Then call these areas back to rest under His powerful presence.
COMMISSION AND FINAL PRAYER:
“Return to your rest, oh my soul, for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.” Psalm 116:7 (NKJV)
Father, I carry your breath in my lungs right now. You have given me life and life to the full. May I make every effort to enter into the state of rest you have called me to, not a giving up of striving, of doing, of cultivating good in this world, but a giving up of the anxious and worried busyness that inhibits my good. You grant rest to those you love, and you love me, so help me lay down what wearing me down. May your peace, your refreshment, your rested presence flow from me for a world that deeply needs it.
I come to you with all my weariness and heavy burdens, so you can give me rest. I want to live content, full, and healthy, with your help. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.