I have recently joked, “I just
thought I had to preach the sermons. I didn't know I had to apply
them!” The joke came about
after having to put the scriptures I preached on, and the
applications I made, to the test. For example, recently, I preached
two sermons on Psalm 23. The first one was “The Rest
of the Story”. It was an application to Psalm 23:1-2, “The
Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green
pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.”
The bottom line in the sermon was that we were made for Sabbath
rest. After all, it is in the ten commandments! If we are not
resting, we are sinning. If we are resting in the Lord, we are being
restored. Ahhh, that sounds good, doesn't it?
I got a chance to
put this to the test on my recent getaway with my son, Jackson. Just
the two of us took a week to go hiking and camping along the
Appalachian Trail. We hiked 20 rugged miles. We didn't shower. We
got bug bites. We had an encounter with a bear! My muscles ached.
We got drenched in multiple rain showers. But that is not all we
got. We got rest. Personally, I got away for a week. I unplugged.
I called it “going off grid”. It was awesome. And as I woke up
each morning in the Scriptures and in prayer and as I went to bed the
same way each night, an amazing thing happened. I grew closer to my
son, and I grew closer to my Lord. He
restored my soul. I was truly
exhausted and grimy by the end of the week, but I have never been more rested.
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