Daily Gospel Reflection

Rest in the Lord

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where we're exploring the genius and the simplicity of each day's gospel and learning how to apply that genius and simplicity to our daily lives. Today's reading is from the Gospel of Mark chapter 6 verses 30 through 34. It's another episode of Jesus feeding thousands of people. The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest for a while. For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in a boat to a lonely place by themselves.

Now many saw them going and knew them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. And as he landed, he saw a great thong and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, "This is a lonely place, and the hour is late.

Send them away to go into the country and the villages around about and buy themselves something to eat." But he answered them, "You give them something to eat." Over and over throughout the Scriptures, we see Jesus has this immense concern for people's human needs. He has an immense concern for their spiritual needs, no doubt. But he has this wisdom that people, when they're fixated on a human need, find it very difficult to hear a spiritual message. And so, it is very uncommon for Jesus to preach to someone in the Gospels before he feeds them, before he heals them, before he comforts them, before he takes care of some real physical or human need.

The word that jumps out at me today is rest. He says to the disciples, "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest a while." It seems to me that we need that rest. We need to learn to step back from a crazy, noisy, busy world and to rest, not just to veg out, not just to binge-watch the next show on whatever it is we're watching it on. That's not resting, but to learn to rest in the Lord and to come away from the busyness of our lives and to rest in the Lord, with the Lord. And he wants to give us that rest over and over throughout the Scriptures. He tells us that.

He wants to give us that rest. And we have a great need for that rest. And so today, I encourage you, I challenge you to think about how is God inviting you to rest today? Have a great day. Remember, don't just be yourself, be the very best version of yourself, all that God created you to be.