Various Tunes: KINGSFOLD, VOX DILECTI, SPOHR… and others!
If you’ve been following these posts, you realize one of my favorite hymns is “My Faith Has Found a Resting Place,” and that I am drawn to texts that emphasize “rest” as one of their themes. This may speak to my chronological status, or it may be simply one of the things I have always sought and valued when found.
The first stanza of this hymn begins with: “I heard the voice of Jesus say, ‘Come unto me and rest. Lay down, thou weary one, lay down thy head upon my breast.’” From there, that allusion from the eleventh chapter of Matthew is fleshed out until THIS hymnline closes the stanza.
When I’m in my resting place, I’m probably at my glad-est. For me, that is usually on the back porch in my rocking chair, glass of iced tea in hand! I’m less stressed, more relaxed, less distracted, more freed-up to do nothing but reflect, think, meditate.
Spiritually speaking, when I find in Christ that cleft in the rock where respite and protection are available, I have a different kind of gladness; that biblical concept of joy comes into play, overwhelming me with a depth of delightful contentment… and I realize I’ve found in him a resting place. It’s sort of cyclical for me: I realize I’ve found a resting place, and that my joy is found in the resting place where I found my joy in the resting place… and so on, and so on, and so on.
Still Christ bids us heavy-laden types to approach him for rest. He is accessible, and his relaxing reward is available. There we find the gladness that passes all understanding.
Me? I’m heading to the back porch!
A relaxing setting of the KINGSFOLD tune!
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