Rest in Ridiculous Places

Why is the wing mirror dangling off my car?

Why is the filthy driver’s door window so amazingly clear? Why is the road I just turned out of, now over there?

My psychologist explained to me that our eyes looking around is the way the brain orientates itself to the present. Unfortunately on this particular morning, there was rather more orientating to do than usual.

A bus had jumped a red light and smashed into my car at 60km/h (approx. 37mph). I had been knocked unconscious on impact, and now my brain was looking around trying to make sense of everything. The last I remember was the speedometer saying 15km/h. Now it said 0km/h, and I couldn’t remember how it got like that. I saw the cracked windscreen. The disfigured dashboard. The cubes of broken glass in my lap. A confused looking bus looking awfully out of place embedded in the bonnet. Eventually, I managed to work out I had been in a motor vehicle accident.

Once I had worked out what had happened, I felt oddly at rest.

I heard the gentle hum of traffic on a distant road somewhere. The wind gently moving through the leaves in the trees. The silent sound of shock from the pedestrians and fellow motorists on the T-junction. And eventually, the comforting wail of the emergency services.

There was absolutely nothing I could do. I did not know the extent of my injuries. But I knew I could not move due to the disfigurement of the car. I knew I could not get myself out. So all I could do was to sit there. Wait. Listen. Look around. What a lovely morning. Just the right temperature. What beautiful morning light. I guess I’m not making it to the office this morning. Oh well. It’s nice to rest!

Odd, isn’t it?

In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus said, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”. Let’s think about this for a moment:

Me: “Hello Jesus! I am weary and burdened, can I have some rest please?”

Jesus: “Of course! Coming right up. I’ll get a bus to run a red light and smash into your ancient car. That’ll do the trick”.

Harsh? Yes, but I remain supremely grateful God didn’t allow it to go as far as He did with Job, Jesus or anyone else in the Bible who got a far rougher ride than me. God does have a tendency to answer prayers in outrageously creative ways we could never imagine. He is, after all, a colossal smarty pants.

Anyway, it’s true - I was weary and burdened from the things of this world. And I wasn’t exactly thrilled with our car, as it was a compromise purchase (we couldn’t afford what we wanted). So now we would have to buy a new car, and I was going to be forced to rest.

“You need to go to hospital”, said the empathetic-looking paramedic, wheeling over a freshly made stretcher.

“Oh it’s fine, I’ll walk to the ambulance” I said to the paramedic, not wanting to make a fuss, and seeing the ambulance was barely 5 metres away.

“No you won’t, you need to be on the stretcher” replied the paramedic, in a tone suggesting she wasn’t open to negotiation.

Rest it is, then.

At the time of publishing, the accident was seven months ago. My recovery - still ongoing - has been a firm lesson in slowing down and prioritising what is important to God, not to me. Clearly God was less concerned with our car, or my career, or my income, or saving for retirement. These are world system things, and He has overcome the world. He was more concerned about my relationship with Him. He knows that when I rest, I’m more likely to get on with the things that He actually wants me to do.

For some of you, balancing rest, life, faith and work comes to you much easier than it does for me. Well done if that’s you! But if you’re anything like me, sometimes it takes a giant wake-up call to figure out what rest actually looks like, and get into better alignment with Him.

When Jesus says “Come to me”, it means making a deliberate choice to walk away from those things that do not bring you rest. It could be a well paid job that’s severely draining you, a sentimental but difficult home, a toxic community or person, a lifestyle, an addiction, a well-trodden way of detrimental thinking. Walking away from the habitually familiar can be a very scary walk. Living by faith is scary for that reason. But living by the world is not life-giving. Thanks to Jesus, we have freedom to choose our own path.

My rest place is in creating, so that’s what I’m doing. St. Jezzer the not-so-average jazz-funk Christian songwriter has been working, much slower than usual, on something both profound and deliciously funky (watch out for news of that in the near future). St. Jezzer the writer on Substack has been launched. I’m dreaming. I’m listening. I’m making plans. I’m actually fully present for my wife and kids. And I’m resting, because I have to.

That doesn’t mean everything is postcard perfect. Post-accident life is actually really hard, and my wife and I are both having to work through a range of challenges as a result. But the answer that keeps coming back to us from all the health professionals working with us, is the same: rest.

It’s not the route I intended to take to find it, but God let me survive the accident for a reason. I could say the same of Job - in fact, I did, in this article.

Rest it is, then.

So now that you know that rest can start in ridiculous places, it’s your turn. What ridiculous place have you, or will you, find Christ’s rest? What draining worldly thing(s) are you choosing to walk away from, in order to find it?

(And please, no jumping red traffic lights to find out).