Hey, good morning you guys. Uh, all right. I hope you can grab your coffee. Let’s just make a promise right up front. If you stay with me to the end of this episode, I’m going to give you one simple sentence that you can say today when your mind starts spinning. When you start replaying the past, when you start worrying about the future, one simple sentence that is going to help you find rest.
Now, I’m not talking about the kind of rest you get from a nice nap. Uh, not a vacation kind of rest. I mean soul rest like peace like shalom peace rest. So stay with me to the end of the episode. So today I believe that you are going to look for rest in one of two places. You’re either going to try to find rest by understanding your life, figuring out all of the problems, knowing where you are, knowing where you came from, where you’re going, and making it all work.
Or you’ll find rest by simply trusting in the one who already understands everything, including your life, where it’s going, where you’ve been, and how it’s all going to work out today. If you think about it, um, all of us are junior theologians. We’re junior scientists. We’re wannabe archaeologists, uh, and philosophers because God made us to want to find the meaning in our lives.
Think about it. We don’t just uh live life. We want to understand life. We want to analyze it. We want to interpret it. We want to pick through it like we’re doing a forensic investigation. Here’s an example. Think of a little girl who asks her mom an endless stream of why questions. Why? Why? Why? Have you had that happen? Why is the sky blue? Mommy, why do people die? Mommy, why do I have to go to bed? Mommy, why do I have to eat my vegetables? Now, the little girl isn’t being annoying.
She’s just being a human. We want to know why. She We have an inner drive to understand. And then, of course, there’s the teenager who hits a season when he seems a little lost. And he’s asking why? Why me? Why not somebody else? Why isn’t Why isn’t it this other way? He’s trying to figure out who he is.
He’s trying to figure out why he is the way he is, what life means, where he fits in, what matters. Or maybe it’s it’s the bride who’s nervous before her wedding. Why? Why is she nervous? Well, because she’s wondering what the future’s going to bring. She’s wondering if she’s really committing herself to the right guy, what this all is going to bring for her future children.
Or think of an old man who’s lost his wife. He’s now a widowerower and he’s gazing off into the distance. Why is he doing that? Because he’s wondering what life is going to be like without his partner. And he’s replaying all the memories of what once was. That’s what we do. We do this, I believe, because we’re made in the image of God.
We don’t just live. We want to find meaning. We’re meaning makers. So, our lives are not just based on facts. They’re actually based on our understanding and interpretations of those facts. It’s not wrong for us to think, analyze, try to figure stuff out. It’s not wrong to think hard. It’s not a sin to want to understand why.
