Recovering Your Life Series

Matthew 11:28 (MSG)

28 "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest.

Do you want to recover your life? Many of us say we want to recover our life, but what we really want is for God to show us how we can be more successful in the world that is stealing it from us, how we can get more done in less time. The last thing we want is to actually get away. Now I want you to stop right now. When I say “get away” I don’t want you to think of those words in some abstract metaphorical terms. “Yes, Pastor Dave in this sense uses ‘get away’ to refer to some supernaturally-derived ability to remain fully engaged in this blood-sucking world and yet continue to maintain a direct line to the divine.” Forget that. I’m not talking about that, I’m asking you if you are prepared to actually GET AWAY. I’m asking if you are ready to realize that if you want things to change in your life, your life will have to change. I’m asking that when I say the words “Get away,” you will hear them exactly as I say them. I’m asking you to realize that getting away with Jesus will impose on your schedule, your expectations, your ideas of productivity, your insecurity-driven needs to be a producer. In other words, getting away with Jesus will effectively remove you out from under the authority of this world when it comes to the management of your life, and will move you under the authority of Jesus. For the Christian, that IS Life Management 101.

Jesus says, “Come away with me and I’ll show you how to recover your life.” We say, “Lord, just help me get more done.” Jesus says, “Come away with me and I’ll help you recover your life.” We say, “Lord, just help me manage stress.” Jesus says, “Come away with me and I’ll help you recover your life.” We say, “Lord, just help me get through soccer season.” And we never stop to consider that all this stuff we’re doing isn’t what Jesus promised to help us recover, that there’s a life beneath and beyond all that – a life that we choke to death by our busyness, by our refusal to come away with Jesus. We never consider that whatever it is that Jesus wants to help us recover simply can’t be found if we don’t get away with him. That may be a walk in the woods for you. It may be a decision to skip a soccer game and stay home and rest and spend part of that time with God. It may be a commitment to truly obey and follow the 4th commandment and not do any work at all on Sunday from now on, including mowing your lawn, cleaning your pool, or washing or folding your laundry. (I will talk to you more some other time about the 4th commandment, because most of us live in flagrant violation of it and then can’t figure out why we never get a moment’s rest.)

What if we could come to link the phrase, “I’m just so busy I can hardly stand it” to the phrase, “I’m living out of sync with God’s will for my life.” What if we realized that to say one is to say the other? Instead of “check out how busy I am” and then listing a bunch of stuff, what if we realized what that really means is, “Check out how much I’m not living my life like Jesus, even though I claim to follow him.” Or “check out how much I live by the values and standards of a world system Christ has called me out of.”