Deuteronomy 4:9 “Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.”

I know parents who spend tens of thousands of dollars on their children’s sports careers. They get them extra coaching, special lessons, drag them all over the United States for tournaments. They want their children to have a chance to play at a level they never could. A few have even dreamed of a professional career. I’m not saying it’s wrong to do this. Sports can teach valuable lessons: hard work, discipline, and how to work with others. Perhaps best of all it teaches how to deal with losing.

But there is limited value here. Even the best players rarely become professionals. Your chances of winning the lottery, for example, are greater than your chances of playing in the NFL.

I know parents who have done similar things for their children’s musical skills, academic skills, or some other special interest. All of it can produce positive outcomes later in life.

But what if you could give your children training that had the ability to enhance almost everything else they do? What if it could turn them into hard workers, good citizens, and faithful parents? What if it could fill them with love, confidence, and teach them to be content? On top of all that, what if it could rescue them from all their failures, and someday save their lives, not just for now but for all eternity? Wouldn’t that be worth more than all the thousands we spend on their braces, or their school, or their weddings?

I’m not claiming that every kid would “get” the lesson. Some don’t. But you know what I’m talking about. Moses laid it out for the people of Israel. “Look at how the Lord has loved and delivered you. Look at the laws he has given to help you distinguish right from wrong.” This is the same Lord we know. We know the only God who loves us enough to save us, the only God there really is. We know his word, his will, and his ways. Shouldn’t our children and grandchildren know him, too? If we don’t tell them, who will? They need Jesus no less than we do. Make his word a priority in their lives. Pass it on.

Deuteronomy 4:8-9 “What other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today? Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live.”

Moses’s assertion about Israel and its laws has parallels to Christians as a faith community. People outside of Christianity might be tempted to laugh out loud at his assertion. Maybe even we are tempted to back away from such a claim. I mean, aren’t Biblical principles about lifelong marriage (between a man and woman), sexual chastity before marriage, honesty even if it means sacrifice, sobriety, protecting life from conception to final breath, modest dress, greed as a kind of idolatry, keeping your tongue under control–aren’t these things hopelessly out of date? In some cases, aren’t they even bad for us?

No! God’s law is nothing more and nothing less than the instruction manual for how life is supposed to work if it is going to operate properly. Ignore it, defy it, and at some level something isn’t going to work right. I suppose that I could drive a nail with the back end of my electric drill. I might not even break the drill the first time. But do this enough and the drill won’t work and the nail will either be bent or only partially driven. Perhaps we can get along for a while ignoring something in God’s law. But eventually something in life isn’t going to work right. Pursue the wrong path in persistent, open defiance of God, and the mess we make will ruin our eternity.

Note that Moses doesn’t say, “What other nation keeps God’s laws so well…” That wasn’t Israel. It doesn’t describe us either. We struggle. We fail. We deal with the consequences. But at least we have the law that can set us straight. At least we know what needs repenting, or we can learn it. At least God has given us what we need to see our sin, and see our need for a Savior. Then we can turn to the God who is always near us with his forgiving grace. Isn’t that a clear advantage of the Biblical faith? Doesn’t that make God’s laws a gift, together with his gospel?

The clear advantage of knowing God’s help and having his law led Moses to issue a warning: Hold on to these things for yourselves. “Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live.”

Sometimes it’s good to have a short memory. Painful things happen. It’s good not to remember them. My son had to endure the taking of a bone marrow sample from his hip without anesthesia when he was diagnosed with cancer years ago. You can ask him about it today. He doesn’t remember. Sometimes people do things that offend us. If we keep thinking about it, it keeps us distant. It’s better to let it go.

Sometimes our short memory gets us into trouble. It’s hard to forget a miracle. Can you imagine walking on dry ground between two walls of water where there used to be a sea and forgetting it happened later in life? Only if one suffered from severe dementia, it seems to me.

Moses wasn’t so concerned that Israel would forget the miracles they witnessed. He did not fear that the 10 Commandments would slip from their memory. He was concerned that Israel would stop seeing the significance of the lessons they taught. “Do not…let them slip from your hearts…” He didn’t want them to stop making an impact on the things they believed about God and the way they lived their lives. That’s exactly what had happened over and over during forty years in the desert.

It happens to us. Problems come and we panic, or we despair. It can be as small as the car breaking down or the rent going up. It can be as big as marriages or health falling apart. God got us this far, didn’t he? “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” If God didn’t love us, if he didn’t intend to take care of us, would he have given up his Son? Has his word ever changed? Has it stopped applying to our lives?

Let’s hold on to what we know about his love, his power, and his will. There is nothing else so great for us to live by.

Deuteronomy 4:7 “What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him?

The future doesn’t look so good for us Christians. You’ve heard the statistics. Churches are shrinking at an alarming rate. It is estimated that between 70 and 90 percent of Christian young adults will leave the church by age 30. For every thriving mega church with 10,000 members there are so many little traditional churches that have closed their doors or hang on by a thread. The big numbers in the one do not nearly equal the numbers lost in the others.

You hear the news. Biblical Christian beliefs about love and marriage are more and more seen as grounds for lawsuits or public demonstrations. Twenty years ago calling a person a “Christian” was similar to calling them a good person in most circles. For more and more people it means, “This is a backwards, judgmental person who stands in the way of progress.”

For forty years in the wilderness, Moses had to keep convincing the people of Israel that it was a good thing to be God’s chosen people, followers of the Lord who brought them out of slavery. Life was not easy for this nation of shepherds. For most of them, their entire life had been a forty year camping trip in a desert.

But Moses helped them to see the clear advantages of being people who belonged to the Lord. The oldest ones listening to him were in their late teens when God dropped ten plagues on Egypt, then made a dry path of escape through the middle of the Red Sea. They saw enough food and water for 2 million people miraculously appear in the desert. They followed the pillar that looked like a cloud during the day and fire at night. Other nations had gods who kept their distance, acted like spoiled children, and occasionally did magic tricks once upon a time in a land far, far away. Israel’s God lived among them. He saved them over and over again. Which faith made sense to follow?

We serve and follow that same God. We may be tempted to think, “Our God doesn’t seem so near or so real today. We haven’t seen miracles like Israel saw.” Perhaps. But has he really grown fuzzy and distant? With Jesus, we have more, not less. We don’t have a mysterious voice thundering from a mountain, or an unapproachable pillar of fire out in a desert. We have God with flesh and bones, a man like us who laughs, and loves, and listens. He isn’t just present in our world. He is a member of our family, a distant relative connected to your very own family tree. It’s true, it’s been two thousand years since he lived and died to save us. But he lives again. An empty tomb just outside the old city of Jerusalem says it’s so. We have the eyewitness accounts of hundreds recorded by a half dozen or so reporters.

And he still shows up. He speaks not with one mouth, but thousands. We hear his voice in the voice of our pastors. He has left us with hundreds and thousands of pages of his love letters–more than dead words on a page, but living and active words, words in which he himself is living by his Spirit, words full of life and of power.

He still meets us personally, bodily, really during those precious moments when we stand before his altar and receive his Supper. There he whispers to our hearts, “I am here. All is forgiven. All is peace. All the blessings of my cross are your very own.” He doesn’t hide in a tent or temple. The same Jesus who walked the streets of Jerusalem now lives in your own heart by faith–not as a collection of historical truths, but as a person who has moved in and made this place his home.

“Still,” we might think, “I would like to see the power. I would like to see the miracles.” Open your eyes, my friends! If at this moment you aren’t in imminent danger of death because some enemy army is hunting you down, no miracle is required. That’s a good thing, right? Do you suppose God’s power isn’t involved in making your life so safe?

If you want more, get to know some of the sober stories from your contemporaries on the front lines of God’s battles today. Talk to someone on a mission field half way around the world. They will tell you about God’s power protecting them or confirming their message in our time.

Right now, we belong to the God who saves us. It doesn’t get any better than that.

John 6:48-51 I am the Bread of Life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

What do you really want out of your religion? Some people want magic. Do you like magic shows? When I was growing up, the big name in magic shows was David Copperfield. When I got a little older, I heard about acts like Penn and Teller. They add humor to the formula and make things more interesting still. It can all be hugely entertaining. But no one is accusing any of those guys of promoting some kind of religion. Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller is an avowed atheist.

Perhaps you know people who want the miracle show on Sunday morning, too. At the least, they want it to be an entertaining experience. Maybe we would like a little more pizzazz as well.

Some people are all about the practicality. They measure a faith by the difference it makes when they go back to work on Monday morning. Is this making me more successful? Is this helping me build better relationships, put food on the table, or live a healthier life?

The people in front of Jesus were looking for some of both, entertainment and practicality. They had seen Jesus do his magic and turn five loaves of bread into a feast for thousands. They had eaten their fill. What could be more practical than free food? Later they challenged Jesus with the example of Moses and 40 years of miraculous free food in the wilderness. Could he top that? Magic and meals–that’s as far as their religion went.

What did this kind of religion get them? “Your forefathers at the manna in the desert, yet they died.” Whether you die of starvation, obesity, or just a ripe old age, the story ends the same. “Yet they died.” Mere magic can distract you from your final fate. It just can’t prevent it. Food and entertainment may be a pleasant way to spend your life. It just can’t give you a life that lasts.

There is no virtue in boring or irrelevant. The faith of the Bible is supremely engaging, saturated with the supernatural, and firmly entrenched in all the practical daily needs and issues of our lives. But there is more. Jesus doesn’t stop at giving us daily bread. He is the bread of life. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever.” He will live forever. The Father has drawn us to Jesus to give us life that lasts…forever.

Life that lasts forever–is that not practical? How many of us are going to run out of earthly life someday? Every hand has to go up. As one of my professors used to say: “The death rate throughout the ages has remained the same-one per person.” (Okay, you can quibble about the handful of people who were raised from the dead and later died a second time, but you get the point). Death is a problem for which Jesus, the Bread of Life, is the solution. Is that not magical, or perhaps we should say, miraculous? All the science, all the medicine, all the nutrition, all the money, all the good behavior in the world can’t keep us alive forever. But one day Jesus will say the word, and all the dead will leave their graves. Those who have fed on the Bread of Life, who have consumed Jesus and his grace by faith, will live the perfected and purified life with him that never ends. That’s not part of the benefit package of any other faith.

For only Jesus can say, “This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Jesus isn’t an otherworldly life coach advising us on how to behave, then hoping we do it well enough to finish in heaven. Life–the eternal kind–is what he gives. First he gives his life–gives it up. He let all our bad behavior–every self-indulgent lust, every nasty word behind someone else’s back, every little lie, every vindictive scheme, every unreasonable grudge–he let it all crush him and kill him on the cross. His body, his flesh, paid the price for our crimes.

Then he gives us life, life that lasts, not because we earned it, but because he earned it. It’s his gift, a gift he gave for the whole world.

You won’t find that trick in a Las Vegas magic show. You won’t get that kind of practical value out of anything your grocery store has to offer. Eat the Bread Jesus offers, and live forever.

John 6:44-45 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.”

If you believe in Jesus and trust his word, then something very exclusive has happened to you. God the Father has drawn you to faith. That is no small miracle. In fact, Jesus says that it is humanly impossible. Coming to Jesus as his followers, his trusting disciples, is as likely for us as flying home by stepping outside and flapping our arms; or as likely as not needing to open doors anymore because we can walk through the walls; or as likely as growing two feet taller tonight. That’s not going to happen. No one can do any of those things. It would take a miracle.

But here you are, listening to what Jesus says and believing it. Jesus describes that miracle as the Father “drawing” you. It can also be translated “dragging” you. It’s the same word used for dragging a boat out of the water and onto the shore. Ever landed a boat that way? Once you get it part way up the beach, and there is no water under it anymore, it is awkward and heavy. No boat ever landed itself like that. It has to be dragged along.

The word is also used in the Bible for the disciples pulling in the miraculous catch of fish after Easter. No net full of fish ever jumped into the boat itself. Someone has to heave it out of the water and into the boat. In another place the word describes the Apostle Paul being dragged out of town unconscious after his enemies thought they had stoned him to death. Have you ever tried to move the body of a person who is fully unconscious? They offer no cooperation. The weight of loose arms or legs shifts and makes moving the person hard to manage. You and I were that boat, or that net full of fish, or that unconscious body, and God the Father pushed and pulled us to faith in Jesus.

All of this says something about us. It isn’t very complimentary. We could get upset, object that Jesus isn’t being very nice, and go off to nurse our wounded self-image.

Or we can learn a valuable and useful lesson about ourselves. Sin is a bigger problem than almost anyone imagines. Practically everyone will admit that they are sinners in a general way. It’s about the same thing as saying “Nobody’s perfect.” Yes, we break the rules. Yes, sometimes we have hurt other people or acted a little selfishly.

But basically, we are all still good, right? No! Basically we are so corrupt and blind we can’t even recognize the only God there is when he is standing right in front of our face and showing himself to us. Basically, we are all so naturally foolish that our default setting is to reject the truth, to reject what God has to say. Basically, we would all be lost forever if God himself didn’t intervene in a miraculous way.

All of this says something even more outstanding about the Father who sent us Jesus. Basically, his love is so strong, so pure, so faithful and devoted that he intervened in a miraculous way. He didn’t push us away because of our sin. He reached out to take hold of our hearts and minds and dragged us home. He has given us the miracle medicine that draws our blackened hearts to Jesus. “It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.’”

God teaches you in his word. More than that, God is miraculously reaches you in his word. When you hear a sermon, it’s more than an entertaining way to pass the time (or a helpful way to cure your insomnia). The Father is taking you by the heart and drawing you closer to Jesus. When you read your Bible, it is more than “life’s little instruction manual,” useful information to get you through your day. The Father is taking you by the heart, repairing and restoring his relationship with you as you find his grace in Jesus.

That’s an exclusive benefit of the Christian faith. There is no other world faith, no other world religion, that draws you to Jesus as your Savior. There is no other faith in which the heavenly Father has given you his wonder-working word. No other faith reaches deep down, and wins your heart, by opening up the heart of God, and exposing his grace and forgiveness in his only Son.

Only this one draws you to Jesus, because only this one leads you to trust him as the Bread of Life.

2 Timothy 4:17b-18 “And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.”

“The lion’s mouth” is probably less a reference to the later Roman practice of feeding Christians to the lions, and more an allusion to the words of Psalm 22, “Rescue me from the mouths of the lions.” It was a colorful way of saying, “I am not dead yet. My execution has been delayed.”

But it was only a matter of time. Still, Paul understood that even in his death the Lord would rescue him from every evil attack and bring him safely to his heavenly kingdom.

For isn’t death the ultimate deliverance? Martin Luther once warned people not to lose their proper respect for death: “I am not pleased with examples which show how men die gladly. But I am pleased with those who tremble and quake and grow pale before death and yet suffer it. Great saints do not die gladly. Fear is natural because death is punishment. Therefore it is sad.”

But the Savior who never leaves us alone went through death for us to absorb all its punishment. Death’s stinger has been plucked. Jesus’ return to life means that when we go through death, he will be there with us, too. Now life is waiting for us on the other side. The death that looked like danger ends in heaven’s safety.

You see, Paul felt deserted at his first hearing, but the Lord stood by him. Soon, however, his trial would not go so well. The judge would condemn him. The officers of the court would lead him away. The executioner’s sword would swing. His head and body would be separated.

At that very moment the Lord would open an escape hatch between his world and ours. As Paul stepped through that door, he would see that he was not alone. The great cloud of witnesses who surround us, watching us from heaven, would welcome him (Hebrews 12:1). He would see the face of the Lamb who sits on the throne, the Lamb who would spread his tent over him (Revelation 22:4 and 7:15). Paul would be truly safe.

Dear friends, we never face danger alone. Here, the Lord stands by our side. After we die, we will stand at his side, safe at home.

2 Timothy 4:16-17 “At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it.”

Paul was no stranger to court rooms or jail cells: Philippi, Jerusalem, Caesarea, Rome. This time was different. This time the trump card of Roman citizenship was not going to get him out of trouble. This jail cell was the end of the line for Paul.

His Roman citizenship still provided him a public hearing in a court of law. He tells Timothy that they had already held his first defense. Paul used it as an opportunity to preach the gospel. That was his mission. But in the process, all his defenders had deserted him.

I think we understand the temptations that being left all alone present. There is the temptation to cave in, to sing a different tune. At school you let slip your Bible-based beliefs about traditional marriage, or a relatively recent creation of the world, or salvation only through faith in Jesus. As you talk, the group becomes strangely silent. It’s clear that no one else here shares your conviction. At best, they think you are a little backwards. At worst, they think you are hateful. What do you do now–try to back-peddle, spin your words a different way, abandon your convictions?

The dread of being alone, of becoming an unpopular little minority rejected by most, is a powerful motivator to give up the courage of our convictions. If it doesn’t get us to change our message, we may try to hide it. We play it safe by keeping our mouths mostly shut. We don’t feel so much like telling others what we believe anymore.

But Paul would have us know that this sense of being alone is largely an illusion. “But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it.”

Paul’s experience of the Lord’s support was no different than our own. This was not his “Road to Damascus” experience in a jail cell. The Lord Jesus didn’t appear to him in some kind of visible spectacle. His eyes were not opened to see something no one else in the courtroom could see.

Paul found the Lord standing by his side and giving him strength where every Christian does: in the words and promises of God. Do you remember the little autobiographical testimony Paul had given toward the beginning of his first letter to Timothy? “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy, so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.”

Paul looked at the Grand Canyon sized contrast between his sin and Christ’s forgiving grace, and he had no doubt that the Lord was on his side, and by his side. Yet it didn’t make Paul feel small and incapable. It gave him strength to work all the harder.

Isn’t this a theme, a connection, that runs all through his life and work? What drives this man? Are his thoughts ever far from God’s grace at the cross when it comes to the tenacity with which he serves? Again and again it is Christ’s love, his cross, his death, his grace that occupies Paul’s thoughts and captivates Paul’s heart. That’s why he lives and serves and endures as though God himself were working through him–which, of course, he was.

God has given us a different mission than he gave Paul, at least in the details. But strength to accomplish that mission works no differently. If we want to know that the Lord is standing by our side, if we want to find his strength to love others every time we open our mouths, if we want to be his hands and feet every time we go to work or school, run to the gospel. Run to God’s promises. Don’t stand and wait to be hit by a bolt of spiritual lightning. Don’t shrink and shrivel in the face of a world that thinks the Gospel is stupid at best and evil at worst. Christ Jesus loves you so much he died to save you. Christ Jesus loves you so much that he has driven all of world history to make sure that you would have a parent or friend or pastor or teacher who brought you the gospel and led you to faith.

You don’t think he stands by you, then? He is at your side to give you strength for the unique mission he’s given you for the short time you’re here.

Mark 6:32-34 “So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”

Ever had a vacation ruined because you couldn’t get away? Jesus described the people coming to him as “sheep without a shepherd.” This isn’t the only time it’s used in the gospels. This is what Jesus found when he came to earth: sheep without a shepherd.

Some of the sheep were wandering in the direction of self-righteousness. For them, faith and religion had become a “do-it-yourself” project. We may know better than that, we think. We understand that “salvation” isn’t a do-it-yourself project. Jesus would have you know that the spiritual life isn’t one, either. Too many self-help books from the Christian bookstore, too many TV preachers preaching moral living, may give us the idea that after the cross, and after conversion, it is more or less up to us to get our acts together and do the right thing. That’s all sheep, no Shepherd. That’s not how it works. We always need the Shepherd with us, sometimes to direct us, but more often to carry us on his shoulders.

Other sheep had given up on faith and religion (or never tried it at all). We hear of Jesus being a friend to prostitutes, and tax collectors, and sinners. That doesn’t mean he approved of their life choices. He was there to change them. He was there to change their minds about sin, and then introduce them to this powerful thing called grace. We are surrounded by people like that today. “I’m not interested in church.” “I’m not religious, but spiritual.” “I’m not a fan of organized religion.” They have no Shepherd. They have no idea of the problem with the direction they are going.

In general, Jesus came to people who didn’t get it. There was so much they didn’t know. So what did he do? Mock them in Facebook and Twitter posts? Call into talk radio shows and gripe about them there? Write them off and leave them alone?

“He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus had compassion. You see, the God we worship is not an otherworldly bookkeeper sitting far away in a little cubicle somewhere, making sure everyone’s accounts are balanced. He isn’t a cosmic bureaucrat enforcing policies handed down to him from above, affecting the lives of people he will never meet.

The God we worship sees the heart’s true need. He sees our misery, even the misery that is self-inflicted. It saddens him. He genuinely feels our pain. And he is moved. He wants to help us from the heart. It is his deepest desire to bring us relief. We know this is true, because Jesus is that God.

That compassion sends him to work. “So he began teaching them many things.” Many of the people in this crowd likely came to Jesus for no other reason than that they wanted a miracle. The other gospels tell us so. Some might have wanted just to see the magic show. Jesus did some miracles on this day.

But the deeper need was to teach them. Faith and religion are not about being entertained, or finding an easier life. They are about finding real help for our hearts in a life that isn’t easy or entertaining. They are about finding that help in the grace and forgiveness of a loving God who cared enough to come here, and live here, and die here to rescue us from our sins. He rose again to give us an infinitely better life on the other side of death. This is the good word on which hungry souls feed. This is our hearts true need–to be fed by the Good Shepherd who has compassion on his sheep.

There are days when I think I need a better car, or a long loud scream, or a million dollars. What I really need is the same thing everyone else needs. I need Jesus to be my Shepherd, who sees me, and provides the food my heart needs.

Mark 6:30-31 “The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’”

When we have more work than we have time, we are tempted to think that we need to work more, and work harder. If we put in more time at work, maybe we can catch up. Maybe we can get on top if it all. This wasn’t just any work Jesus and his disciples were doing. Real people were coming to them with real problems–disease and disability. Some were looking for the spiritual comforts of Jesus’ words. The opportunity was ripe to grow Jesus’ ministry. How could they leave in the middle of all that?

Jesus, however, saw the need of the twelve men who assisted him. If he didn’t take care of them, and himself, how could they take care of others?

God recognizes that rest is not an option. He created his world with a day of rest. When he summarized his will for people in the Ten Commandments, one of the ten had to do with rest. “Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work…” (Ex. 20:8-9). There is no commandment reminding us to eat, or dress warmly, which are also human needs. But he does command us to rest our bodies from work, and to rest our souls in his word.

Why do we resist? Could it be pride? I don’t want to admit, to myself or others, that I have limitations. No job is too big for me. No challenge is more than I can handle. We all have a little bit of Annie Oakley from Annie Get Your Gun in us: “Anything you can do, I can do better.” Sinful pride insists, “I can do this, even if it kills me.” You know, it just might.

Maybe we neglect rest out of a kind of despair, born of an overactive sense of responsibility. We feel alone, abandoned, trapped. If we don’t do it, no one else will. Keep a stiff upper lip. Soldier on in pain and silence. Endless work might make us miserable, but we don’t see an alternative.

Neither pride nor despair makes much consideration of an almighty and all-loving God. Both put us in God’s place. That is a dangerous spiritual place to be. For this, Jesus must bring us to the end of ourselves, to the point of utter exhaustion. Only then we can see what he sees: Time to rest is part of our true need.

Here is his prescription: “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Jesus’ formula for rest comprises three parts. “By yourselves”– get away from the world, from the people who are draining all the life out of you. Leave behind the daily struggle with priorities, opinions, and practices of those who follow a different master. That doesn’t have to mean absolutely alone. Jesus and the Twelve had their little fellowship: faithful friends and family (some of the disciples were brothers) they could count on for support. “Rest” can also include time with the people who are not a constant challenge, but a pleasure and a support for heart and soul.

Second, “…to a quiet place…”– away from work and the busyness of life, a place where office or school can’t find you. Maybe you remember a commercial in which a group of buddies are traveling in an SUV. Every once in a while they stop, and one gets out and holds his cell phone up in the air. They keep moving on until they find a place where there is no signal. Sometimes we need to be beyond reach, and beyond distraction. Jesus wants our attention on something else…

“Come with me…” That’s the third thing, but really the first that he said. Jesus wants our rest to be with him. He doesn’t want to give us a new list of tasks to complete. He wants to erase the things we falsely put on our task list, like “carrying around our guilt,” and “paying for our mistakes.” He already did all that for us at the cross.

“Come with me,” he says, not so that he can take us out behind the woodshed and give us a good beating. He isn’t looking to bring us up short, to point out all our faults. He is inviting us to forgiven and to be set free.

“Come with me,” says our Lord, not to be used, but to be loved. It’s okay to admit you are not so strong. You need to know that you are not alone. Jesus sees your true need to rest in his grace and love.