Nothing To Hide | Crossroads Daily

Hey, how's it going? We're talking about Hebrews 4 today. My name's Josh. I'm Debo. I'm Jordan. I'm Miko. We are talking about rest. Are any of you nappers? Only on Sunday. I wish. Nah. Guys, let me tell you what you all need to be focusing on in your life, and that is 30 minute naps. Is that what you do? That's what I'm wondering. Whenever you can. Whenever you can. Okay. All right. Take a nap. Okay. That's good for you. That is. So, in Hebrews 4, we have this, so we're given this idea that Jesus is our high priest. And so, at the time, a priest was how you got to God. It's still, in the Catholic tradition, still a priest is the gateway between you and God. When Jesus comes to the scene, he's like, no, that's me. I'm the way. And he says, I have a deep abiding rest for you. So, a question for us is, when have you felt, it doesn't necessarily have to have been with

Jesus, but when have you felt deep rest? Or like your soul is just like, oh, this is awesome. For me, literally last week, I was in Puerto Rico a week ago. My husband and I went on vacation, and it was like the most, I literally have said this to everybody that's asked, it's been the most restful vacation. There was no agenda. We were just laying on the beach. It was deeply restful. Didn't even know what day it was half the time. I was like, what day is it? Like, genuinely restful. Yeah. What about it? Like, what about it was restful? What was different than any other day? I don't, I feel like my mind wasn't consumed by anything. Like it wasn't, it was like I could just be, and I didn't have anything in my mind that was weighing me down. Yeah. I just free my mind. Yeah. I'm from North Carolina. I grew up near the coast, just moved to a landlocked state now. So I'm struggling a bit, but when I lived in North Carolina, I would surf two or three times a week. And surfing was this place in my life where I was by myself. I didn't have my phone. No one was trying to talk to me or anything, and it just felt like life slowed down a little bit. Kind of like what you're talking about.

It didn't even matter if I was catching waves or not, or if it was off day, but just being in the ocean, in God's creation, in solitude, alone with my thoughts, it always felt like there were times where whatever I was stressed about, whatever worries, things just kind of seemed to, that I had been like kind of suppressing, you know, probably for a while through the busyness of my life. Those kind of all just like came up to the surface and I'd be like, Oh, okay. I see that thing. And I'd just be able to talk in and out of conversation with God, you know, as I'm trying to catch some waves. But it was this moment I'd always leave, my body would even sometimes feel a bit tired. Surfing's hard work. But on a soul level, I always felt very replenished. And I'm kind of struggling to find that thing here now. And I'm, I need that thing. I don't know what it is yet. I know I have to be intentional about that. I go like on a solo retreat. And that's probably, because at first I'm thinking like, yeah, I don't, I can't think of anything. But I'm like, when you say replenished, immediately, that's what came to mind, like, Oh, yeah, my like, solo retreats that are going from time to time. And that is probably, not even probably, that is by far like the most restful time of my year, you know, is just the experience of just a cabin. And there was one place I went to the springs out in Indiana, and I literally had no one else was there but me. So it was me. And then the people who actually, you know, tended to the land and 150 acres, and me. And I had cherries and chicken salad and just because I'm like, I don't want to because I've gone on a before and I fasted. But then sometimes I'm like, I'm just hungry a lot of the time.

So I'm like, I just very low maintenance. So, cherries and chicken salad, man. I have a hot take on chicken salad. We'll talk about later. Chicken belongs on a bone, not shredded. I'll just throw it out there. So yeah, belongs on bone. Don't shred the chicken. But we're talking about it later. We'll talk about it later. I had to say it now. So I think there's something inherent in everything. So the thing that came to my mind was the first cruise I ever took with my wife. Didn't know I would be a cruise person, but someone got us a cruise for free. And I remember we were sleeping and we had a window in our cabin. And at night, the boat would go down beneath the waves and come back up and it would just rocked all night long. And I just remember it was the best, one of the best nights of sleep I ever had. And I was so at peace. And I didn't worry about whether the boat was gonna sink or not. It was just like blind faith, blind, blissful faith. But I think the thing, a thing inherent in everything we were just describing is this soul level trust. Like there's no, like when you're surfing,

maybe there's things you're concerned about in the water, but in general, the burden of your day is gone. Like you're on vacation, you're at peace. I don't have to worry about the deadline. And I think inherent in that is this, I just have trust in my soul. Like everything, everything is good. And I think that's this invitation that Jesus is giving us in this Hebrews 4, just trust me, just trust me that this blind faith that this boat isn't gonna sink, even though everything inside me is like, yeah, it could sink, it could absolutely sink. So I think there's this level that we have to get to where it's like, in our day to day, we can have that kind of rest. We can have that kind of peace. When you describe it, it sounds like contentment. Yeah. That's right. Like I'm hearing, and for me, a lot of those words are like very interchangeable, but I'm reminded of how Paul was like, whether little, whether a lot, you know what I mean? You don't have to go seek this place, this thing. Like, no, it's just being postured in contentment, man. That's right. Yeah, I also think about how in this chapter, Jesus is referenced as a high priest. And like, when you think about the priests

who had to do things or people had to go through these priests, there was things that you had to do almost to, I don't know, acquire this type of rest or grace. And what's cool is like, I feel like in this chapter, it's like a reminder of like, you don't, there's not really actionable things that you need to do other than just like abide in me. It's like, all of that is taken away. And it's like, Jesus is like, I'm reframing what, as the high priest, I'm reframing this for you. Like what rest really looks like, which I think is really cool. Yeah, and as the high priest, he's going to take on the burden of being presentable to God for you. Yeah, yeah. And you don't have to do that. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about as we're talking is I feel like so many parts of my day is about, or I make it about, how am I perceived? How do I look? Am I achieving? Did I get all my to-dos done today? Did I look impressive to these people? And it's a lot of work, honestly, to keep up that reputation or to manage my image, whether that's in person or on the internet or whatever. And rest feels like that thing where I'm just like, I'm not about any of the gimmicky stuff.

There's nothing I'm trying to hide or be like, ooh, look over here at this thing. And it's just like, this is just me as I am. Not super impressive, not faking it. And it's just like, oh, that's the rest, is when I just like, yeah, God sees me just as I am. And... I love that connection. I love that connection because it's like, even struggling with that at times or whatever, like I can leave a conversation and just, oh, how did I come off of things like that? Or whenever I have a speaking engagement, a lot of times, you know, you can, nah, I shouldn't have said that, whatever the case. And I think the more and more I've wrestled with that tension afterwards, I've definitely had this quicker pivot to just letting go. Like, oh, well, you know? Right, you know what I mean? And then it's like, I've never associated that with rest, but it's like, as you say that, I'm like, yeah, that is, I'm so, after doing that and just letting go, like, all right, I'm not about to let these thoughts just have their way in my mind. And it's like, no, that is, I feel at rest afterwards, bro. Like, yeah.

So this rest that Hebrews is talking about isn't a rest someday. I mean, it is, there is an ultimate, there's this ultimate rest we have, but like, I think this, as Jesus being a high priest, there's an invitation for us to have this rest daily. So the question for us is, another question. for us is I think my interpretation of this is I get that trust, I get that rest the more I trust, the more I trust in God. So how do you practically trust in God? Do I just go, everything's gonna work out, everything's gonna be fine. How do you trust? I think it is truly in abiding. I don't think there's a light switch that happens. I think that as you abide, you become more familiar with his nature, his character, who he is, and in time that builds that sense of trust that you have in your heart, that sense of certainty. And you become more familiar with him and his ways and at that point it's like you can be more reliant on him, not just for the thing that you're relying on him for, but it's like I can just be at rest, I can just have contentment, I can be fulfilled just in you, but you have to abide and just spend time. So I was gonna ask, how does Miko abide? By trusting? No, definitely a practical thing. Yeah, I think definitely regular conversation, regular those deposits of stillness with him. The same, whatever it would look like for, you know, a relationship with anyone, like what is, so for me that is talking to him regularly, that is seeking his perspective in prayer and conversation at all times, that is the way I pray, Lord, this is what I'm seeing, but give me your perspective in this, Lord, over my perspective, you know, every emotion that I'm feeling, like, okay, Lord, are these indicators? You know, welcoming him into every aspect of me and the way that I experience life, so, and having conversations with him about it. That's good. I have, for a while I had this habit of, I had read this book called Practicing the Presence of God, which was based on this writing of this

monk, a monk from a long time ago, Brother Lawrence, and in this book this guy said for a while he had, he would take these post-it notes and he would write on it, are you awake? And he would just put them throughout his life, so in his car, and the idea for him was those post-it notes represented this idea to remind himself, am I awake to God's presence right now? And so I did that for like a year, and I'm still finding post-it notes, like, eight years later I find them randomly. So I think for, I think a tool for us and a challenge for us is this week, like, what, do something, do a thing, whether it's like a calendar or a reminder, like once a day that pops up and says, are you trusting me? How, trust me right now, and whatever that, we just, we constantly need this redirection back to this truth, that there is this rest and we can have it now, you can have it right now in this moment, it's not necessarily for some other time, maybe for right now. So that's your challenge, go rest.