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 Most of my life I struggled with the inability to rest and enjoy life. I could even be on vacation on the lake, water skiing with my family, and the moment someone did not keep the boat ship shape something seemed to grip me and pull me into restlessness. Some words to describe how I felt inside were tension, anxiety, agitation, striving, or stressed. My family might even use the word obsessed.
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Most of my life I struggled with the inability to rest and enjoy life. I could even be on vacation on the lake, water skiing with my family, and the moment someone did not keep the boat ship shape something seemed to grip me and pull me into restlessness. It was not only around boats that I easily got pulled into restlessness, but while trying to instruct my children in sports, school work, playing games, working in the yard, people being late, or anything that had to be done precisely and in order. Some words to describe how I felt inside were tension, anxiety, agitation, striving, or stressed. My family might even use the word obsessed.
Let's try to give definition to this restlessness - the feeling that there is something more that I have to do or put in order to feel valued, affirmed, accepted, or loved.
It helps to understand this restlessness before we can displace it and become a resting place for God's love and His presence. Restlessness is often wired to the unmet need of a child to feel secure in love. In my childhood expressed love did not envelop me and leave me with a feeling of security and acceptance. Being raised with two hypercompetitive athletic parents, I had to perform well in sports, at school, and at home in order to have any sense of affirmation or love. The problem was that I rarely felt I matched up to their rigid interpretation of a winner. Even as I am writing about it I can feel the tension of being on the tennis courts with my dad or doing homework with my mom.
In 1980 I was radically saved and delivered from drug and porn addictions but I still had a diminutive sense of rest. In 1984 I was filled with the Holy Spirit but still found very little rest. In the late 1980's I went through many hours of deliverance and prayer counseling - but few moments of rest followed; I still had the feeling that I needed to pray more, study more, be more disciplined, serve more, do better, etc. In 1995 I experienced a revelation of God as a loving Father. Trisha said about that encounter that, "Jack was transformed more in 45 minutes than 15 years combined of walking with God." But in the years that followed, the moment something went wrong or was out of order I would be pulled back into restlessness. This is a picture of the way I have lived most of my life.
In the late 1990's I received a revelation of sonship and our ministry exploded in visibility. Many people began to seek out Shiloh Place and ministry through us. I began saying yes to too many good things and soon found myself overwhelmed doing good things. I quickly learned that the greatest danger to an outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the danger of restlessness from not realizing the importance of abiding in a profound sense of God's rest.
A Competitive Culture
Society is generally a competitive culture that draws people out of rest. It does not affirm rest but it does affirm achievement. Rest can even offend the restless. A lifestyle of rest can either become contagious or offensive.
Even in the most loving homes we are influenced by this culture that says we must have more, do better, achieve, and keep order. It can subtly invade the way we think God feels about us, the way we feel about Him, and the way we treat others. When we are restless we stray away from living life as if we have a home in God's love and we start seeking to perform to earn it.
A competitive culture tends to define rest as a place of idleness or being unproductive.
But Biblical rest is not a place without activity or fruitfulness. Rest is a posture of the heart that feels so sheltered in God's love that it does not allow itself to be pulled into a place where we strive to feel valued, affirmed, or secure. Rest is a place where mankind will be drawn to us because everyone is searching for rest. Why do you think
there are so many addiction and escapism problems?
On my expedition to Antarctica last year I was amazed at the innocence of the penguins. They seemed to want to get to know me as much as I wanted to know more about them. If you sat on a rock among one of their colonies and were free from fear and striving - they would slowly make their way over to you, stand a couple of feet away, and check you out from head to toe. Creation was drawn to the rest within. But any sharp movements or large noises would repel creation from you. It could even cause the parents to forget their young and trample them in the snow as they sought to escape your restlessness.
All of creation is drawn to rest but it is repelled by restlessness. In a recent survey of 10 and 11 year old children they were asked what they liked most and what they liked least about their parents. Answers were varied about what they liked most. But almost every one responded the same with what they liked least, "When my mom or dad get upset or yell." The health of the emerging generation is in danger of being snowed under by our restlessness.
Cease Striving
Cease striving and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10) There are a number of passages in the New Testament about entering into God's rest.
The Greek definition for rest speaks of - to cease, to be refreshed, to settle down, to abide. Rest is about living life rejuvenated and at peace. But restlessness is about living life with a feeling that there is something more you have to get right in order to relax and feel secure and have a sense of self-worth.
In February this year, after a few months of generally feeling bad physically, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. One doctor inferred that I would not make it to the end of the year and to get my affairs in order. When given the news, I smiled. The doctor said, "Do you not understand what I have just told you?"
My response was, "I understand very well but you do not understand who my Dad is. I am a beloved child of the Creator of all things. What may seem to be real in the physical realm is superseded by the realities of the spiritual realm. What may seem impossible to science is possible to my Father. He knows what I am in need of and He will not forsake me." The doctors thought it very odd that I did not respond with fear or despair. I was a little shocked myself.
Since the bad report, in order for my body to receive quality rest, I have laid aside further traveling in ministry this year and turned it over to others. I have seen my physical strength diminish while spiritual strength increases. At times my body has been too weak to pray or read my Bible. There have been a few nights when the fluid on my lung (pleural effusion) caused such pain and shortness of breath that I lay in bed weeping and I could only utter a groan that supernaturally comforted me, "Lord Jesus, full of grace, have mercy upon me!" In spite of the circumstances in the natural I am at rest in the faith that spiritual realities will eventually supersede the earthly ones. There is little strength left in me that is able to try and help God control my destiny.
I am realizing that one of the primary foundations to the kingdom (King's Domain) of God is rest (see Matthew 11:28-30; Hebrews 4:1-12). Rest is a place of surrender and submission that unleashes an atmosphere of faith. It is difficult to have the faith necessary to abide in His love without rest, and it is feeling secure in love that brings rest.
Restlessness is kin to faithlessness. It has its roots in insecurity and fear. Restlessness and faith cannot coexist - they work against each other. Rest is active and grabs hold of the kingdom and pulls kingdom realities into the natural realm where the natural must begin to give way to the spiritual. In these past few months I have discovered the spiritual reality that I need only a mustard seed of faith for God's love to dispel the restlessness and the need to be in control.
I never want to go back to the way things were before I entered this challenge. I've not arrived where I would like to be but I have begun to enter into a depth of rest that I did not know was possible before. There is no fear or anger at God. I've not once questioned, "Why me!" I've ceased from striving when playing games or even when I am following a slow driver in the left hand lane. I even feel relaxed when someone is late. Many of the little things that used to so easily pull me out of rest are just too temporal to lose my peace over. God is in control and I am working on resigning the position of trying to help Him manage the universe.
Entering Into Rest
People often now ask me, "Jack, if you can be suffering as you have been and are at rest then there has got to be a way that I can enter that rest too and am no longer pulled back into the stress, striving, and agitations. How do I get there?"
First, take ownership of your need for rest and stop blaming God, circumstances, or people. If rest is difficult for you, somehow you are still trying to perform or control something.
Without rest you eventually become worn out - spiritually, emotionally, and physically.
You may begin to isolate yourself and start denying your physical and emotional needs.
You may find yourself too busy to spend time with family, friends, or hobbies. You may start becoming more critical and judgmental of others as you work harder to prove to yourself through your work, spiritual disciplines, or 'got it all together' image that you have value or self-worth. The inner emptiness increases your restlessness and in time may lead to depression. Eventually you are left in a state of agitation or apathy where life and relationships seem to lose their meaning. The unrest compromises your immune system and you may find yourself succumbing to increased dis-ease and sickness.
Second, see yourself at rest in Father's embrace. From the position of being God's beloved child Jesus invites you into the same relationship with His Father that He enjoys. The only way you cease from striving is by entering into this community of love.
The secret of Jesus' life and ministry was the rest He found in His Father's love. "The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and greater works than these will He show Him, that you may marvel." (John 5:19-20)
Because of Jesus' relationship with His Father, He did not have to strive to make things happen. He did not fear anything or get into anxiety or stress. Because you have entered into this community of love, you have the potential to do greater works than Jesus did. You can walk in His divine nature. You can enjoy the same place of rest in Father's embrace. You do not have to strive to make anything happen. (see John 14 - 17).
Discovering rest does not happen by just slowing down or stopping. It is found in believing that God wants to continually demonstrate His love to you in the same way He did Jesus. Your labor is simply to enter into that rest as Jesus did and as God did from His labors (see Hebrews 4:10-11).
God is waiting on you to be at rest in Him so that He can pour out His compassion on you and reveal His kingdom to you in ways you could never before have perceived or imagined. Years ago Bob Mumford said it this way, "When we act, God waits. When we wait, God acts." Waiting on God and entering into His rest are the most productive moments of your life. (see Isaiah 30:18; 64:4)
Third, realize how Jesus' finished work on the Cross made it easy for you to enter into God's rest. When you cry out, "Jesus, have mercy on me!" how long does it take for Jesus to find you? Every time you cry out His name Jesus will always lead you into Father's embrace. Even if you have found yourself in the pigpen, Father is waiting for you with outstretched arms and a heart full of love and compassion (see Luke 15:20).
Jesus made it easy for you to find rest.
“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. Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." (Matthew 11:28-30, from The Message)
Jack Frost, founder of Shiloh Place Ministries, pastor, author, teacher and accomplished sea captain went home to be with Father God March 5, 2007 after a heroic battle with cancer. Jack became known as Top Hook in the Southeast United States. He accredits this accomplishment to Captain Al Kline who taught him the way of the sea and became a father figure who imparted to him confidence, self-worth and belief that it is possible to overcome any adversity found at sea or in life. Shiloh Place Ministries has become an international ministry touching and impacting the world with the message of the true heart of Father God and His love. Through his incredible gift of leadership, he has raised up thousands of leaders and ministers.
Used by Permission: Jack Frost Shiloh Place Ministries, PO Box 5, Conway, SC 29528 (843) 365-8990
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Biblical Teaching 
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