A few days ago I received heart-breaking, shattering news that someone I cared for deeply was seriously ill. From cryptic notes I’ve gotten since then it seems my friend is in great pain. No doubt the family has now taken steps to alleviate the pain and keep him comfortable. But they’ve evidently decided to now leave things completely in God’s hands.

All this reminded me of some thoughtful moments my friend and I shared almost ten years ago, while stretched out on lounge chairs looking out at the Pacific at Oceanside, on the California Coast Highway. We’d been thinking about days that are now upon both of us.

“I don’t fear dying” he said.. “It’s the passing that gives me pause”. Those thoughtful, even prophetic words, are now so very real to both of us, to my friend even more so in these difficult days.

What does one looking through the haze of pain-filled days hang on to?  Thankfully there are words written into Holy Scripture designed for such days.

One place that stands out is in 1 Samuel 30. There we find David and his men just back from a bone-weary three-day journey. They’re finally home, but only to find out that enemies had raided and burned their homes to the ground. Worse, their wives and children had been taken captive.

And understandably, they all hit rock bottom, David included. We’re told David and the people “lifted their voices and wept until there was no strength in them to weep” (1 Samuel 30:4, Nasb)

And if that weren’t enough, the intolerable stress drove David’s men to mutiny. They openly spoke of stoning David, indirectly blaming him for all that had happened.

Where does one go when faced by terrifying, bewildering days like these? After one has done everything, read all he can read, heard all the empathetic, consoling words offered, where does one go? Where does one go if after all that all you can do is to “weep until there is no strength left to weep”?

There is a place reserved for such a time. One that curiously isn’t talked of all that much.. Hebrews 4, calls it “His Rest”. It’s a place that comes out of Israel’s historical roots, described in words that seem to speak only to Israel then and now. Perhaps that’s why it isn’t dwelt upon all that much in our day.

Hebrews 4:9-11(Nasb)  ⁹ There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.. ¹¹ let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.

The Hebrews understood these words had their forefathers in mind. They understood how all this “did not profit them,” their forefathers, because they remained enslaved by stress both real and imagined, enslaved by their fears. Stress and fears that eventually shredded whatever nascent faith there was there and exploded into open unbelief.

And yet the invitation remains clear, simple and available to all He counts as His own.. “There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God”, it says. A rest that needs to be “diligently entered” (v11).

What does that mean? How does one “diligently enter” this rest? This isn’t rocket science. In fact one comes to the gate quite naturally to one who is at the end of his rope, to one left with nothing but “to weep until there is no strength left to weep”.

The next step is simply to leave everything behind. The next step is simply to accept that God is fully in control, that He alone calls the shots. The next step is to rest fully, deliberately.. as deliberately as God rested on that final day when He created all of us, and all that we see around us.

That is the step David came to in 1 Samuel 30:6  At his very wits end, mired in discouragement and stress, “David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.” He took all the load from his own shoulders and placed it on Jehovah’s.

My friend was right there when I got that startling, shocking note days ago. But I have no doubt he’s entered into God’s Rest now, as I write this.

We spoke of this very time, right there on that beautiful beachfront, the cold, freezing wind of the Pacific biting on our cheeks some ten years or so ago.

He was there and knew exactly what he would do. I pray I won’t have to do the same. But if it comes to that I too know what to do.

Rest easy my friend.. I am with you in Spirit and in my prayers.