When we feel weak and frustrated by how limited we are, we can turn to him and find rest, knowing he has taken care of all we need for salvation in the gospel. We don’t need to work without ceasing to prove our worth to our Father because Christ has already accomplished all we need for salvation. We can now serve God out of a place of rest and gratitude.

I collapsed into the wingback chair. A long walk on the trail pushing the stroller over bumps and ruts in the summer heat and humidity had exhausted my body. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and begged for water. I propped my feet up and gulped down a glass of water and chewed into an energy bar to restore my body.

My eyes flitted over all the unfinished work surrounding me. The laundry still needed to be folded, the office still needed to be organized from cleaning out the desk, the kitchen floor still needed sweeping from supper, and the bathroom still needed renovating.

On days like this, I long for eternal strength. I wish I never became weak or faint. I wish I could stay up into the late hours of the night finishing all these projects without taking a break. Sometimes I even try to push through, knowing I’ll pay for it that night as I try to fall asleep with a racing mind and throbbing feet.

I not only do this in physical exhaustion but mental and emotional exhaustion. When I feel as if my mind is going to break from helping one more person, comforting one more screaming child, or volunteering for one more activity, I put my head down and plow forward anyway, taking on even more tasks.

Yet as humans, we will never know what it’s like to run without tiring, to exercise without sore muscles, to work at a desk all day and not have our minds turn to mush, or to care for every single hurting person we encounter. Though we may resist and pump more caffeine into our veins, eventually our bodies will give out. As mothers, we know how lack of sleep crumples us in every way and what happens when we spend an entire meal running from child to child serving food without ever sitting down to eat ourselves.

Can you relate to this constant drive toward exhaustion? This regular imaginary play that we can be eternal like God? Are you tired of it—but likewise feel as if you can’t stop? We must relinquish such travail and toil and rest in God’s eternality—though first, we should understand where this drive stems from.

The Culture of Efficiency

What leads to this constant striving to be eternal? Perhaps our modern culture plays a part.

Our current North American culture upholds and honors that which is efficient and produces the most content or product. If we have nothing to show for our work at the end of the day, was it truly worth it? If we didn’t maximize production and speed on every task, did we truly do our best? As AI continues to thrive, we may begin to wonder: if I can’t be eternal like God, I might get replaced by a machine.

Meanwhile, much of our meaningful work is anything but efficient. Relationships, parenthood, marriage, art, education, and pastoral care (to name just a few) are utterly inefficient when done well. It’s not productive to spend eighteen years producing a well-equipped, godly human being. Am I truly maximizing my time by spending several hours working on a painting only my husband and children will see? Perhaps you could have written a month’s worth of sermons this week if that family didn’t have an unexpected crisis.

Often we have less to show for ourselves at the end of the day, and to our world that is humiliating. But God calls us to a much humbler way of life: rest and trust in his eternality, accepting the good limits he placed on us.

God Is Eternal and We are Not

God is eternal. Dwell on that for a moment.

Read More