We can leave rest as quickly as enter into it. Yet I find that most people beat themselves up about it, rather than getting the perspective they need to enter into and remain in the rest of God.
Personally, I didn’t know that we actually need to labor to get into rest, as soon as possible.
Sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? Hurry up and work to get into rest? That’s what it says…
Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest… Hebrews 4:11
Hurry Up and Rest!
Look at what diligence here means:
- to use speed
- to make effort
- be prompt or earnest
- do (give) diligence
- be diligent (forward)
- Endeavour
- Labour
- Study
What we are reading here says: Hurry up and get into rest as soon as possible! It’s available right now, so get in there!
Remove whatever is in your way, because you will waste energy, time and resources wandering; when in reality, you have a promise to live in rest…right now.
So fight to get there. That’s the command.
You and I need to fight to enter into rest. This means pushing aside the hindering mindsets and belief systems that keep us from divine rest.
We must also protect that rest, lest we fall out of the simplicity of peace that rest provides. Like changing lanes on the highway, we can easily leave the treasure of God’s rest.
What’s the Real Hindrance?
So what keeps you from rest? Some would say schedule, stress or pressure. Yet rest has little to do with your circumstances showing rest. It has way more to do with what you are cultivating within.
Why do we get out of rest? It has everything to do with our belief system and how it gets formed. When we fall out of rest, unbelief pulls us out. In those moments, what we truly believe is formed more by unrest than by the nature of who God is.
When it comes to belief, we leak easily. Like Israel, I can believe God for anything one moment, and the next, talk like that miracle never happened.
What is Unbelief?
Unbelief keeps us from rest every time. It can pull you out in a instant. And trust me, it wants to follow you around and pester you like an insect. Unbelief involves any thought or perspective that takes you out of your confident position of who God is and His involvement in your life.
When unbelief becomes a driving force, we lose our ability to be convinced of what is possible in God. Most of all, we lose a sense of confidence and energy. Our eyes become fixed on negative circumstances, survival and creating a sense of safety.
Why Does Unbelief Have a Hold?
In my years of learning about the rest of God and helping people for over 2 decades, I have found these four areas to be highly influential to keeping unbelief as an influence of thought in our lives.
1. You have a loss of confidence.
The majority of people who walk into my office with emotional wounds, struggles of the mind or relationship challenges all have a loss of confidence. They may never had confidence to begin with, therefore, unbelief becomes a comfortable way to protect their broken heart.
When you’ve lost confidence, resurrecting hope can be painful. You don’t want to be disappointed again. The conditioning of disappointment and heart-ache slowly steals your ability to live confidently in life.
Satan has a strategy to steal your confidence. He does this mostly through accusation and condemnation. Your enemy will use any and every kind of thought against you to strip your faith and confident expectation of God’s involvement in your life. The more he can effectively accuse, the more you fall underneath your past disappointments.
That’s why John said:
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. 1 John 3:21 (NKJV)
2. We are not fully convinced of His goodness.
The thief is responsible for stealing, killing and destroying. Yet I find that one of the tools he leaves behind is thoughts that blame God for what has happened to you. In this day and age, the goodness of God is constantly being put on trial.
If the enemy can keep you in unbelief about the goodness of God, it will create a sense of distance in relationship.
Disappointment is one of the biggest experiences he uses to implant this level of unbelief.
He steals, kills and destroys.
He blames God for what has happened to you.
Then he convinces you to question and doubt God’s goodness.
Then you feel separated. Why would you want to be in connection with a God who is not good?
3. We don’t have a reference of the Father’s Love for us.
Wanna know if you are able to rest in the Father’s love for you?
It’s simple . . . answer this question:
“Do you know that when push comes to shove, your Father has your back?”
That’s where the battleground of rest exists. Will God show up for us or is the pressure all on our shoulders?
So many of us were not fathered in the faith, so we lack a revelation of what the Father’s love provides for us. Therefore we lack the confidence necessary to fully enter into rest.
Rest involves letting go, but how are you going to let go if you don’t have a revelation in your heart that God’s got your back?
That is why our inability to rest is often tied to our father wounds.
Does He notice me? Will He show up for me? When I need Him most, will He be there in the midst of this struggle?
It all goes back to how we relate to Father. The more we heal those wounds, the greater we can see who the Father is and rest in His ability working through us.
4. We self-sabotage.
For so long, we all contend for great things to happen in our lives. But what happens when those things actually start coming to pass?
What if what I am praying for really happens?
You may not realize this right now, but so many times we sabotage entering into promise, because there is an unbelief over whether or not we can even handle what the new level looks like. We know that a new level of breakthrough requires a new level of identity and participation.
So we sabotage because we don’t believe we have what it takes to live in promise. There is an upgrade needed in how we see ourselves.
If you pray for your husband to turn around. What if he does? Are you ready to live in a more powerful marriage? What if the business does take off like you have been praying? Are you ready for the new level of living?
We often go back to what is comfortable. The new territories of promise involve an upgraded version of ourselves, but that can be tough to step into. So often when breakthrough is on the cusp of forming, we can self-sabotage the process.
Question: What do you find fuels unbelief in your life?