Yes, we are dust, but our identity in this life remains ever secure in Christ. Let that inform and guide you particularly when resting seems impossible. Never lose sight of the reality that “as a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” Though our “days are like grass” and we are soon gone, “the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments” (Ps. 103:13–18). Remember, “you are not your own, for you were bought with a price” (1 Cor. 6:19–20).

Rest. It’s a difficult word, and I’ve failed to place and describe it in my life. There are many days when I turn from rest—in my heart and with my priorities. I’m ashamed, tired, and needy. And so, I cry out in repentance, Abba Father, forgive me, for many were the days I did not rest in you. I am weary, yet I seem to run away from your presence even though your arms are wide open. Please hear my plea and bring me to Christ’s peace, in whom I eagerly long for eternal rest. In his name, amen.
Resting Away from Christ
Beloved, can you relate to the following three major issues I’ve noticed each time I sought rest away from Christ?

A self-seeking stubbornness, keeping myself crushed and forsaken despite the work of Christ’s cross and leading me to conclude, from a bottomless pit, “I am but dust, and, therefore, I shall rest when I return to dust.”
A self-perceived, Christless worthlessness, where my past defines my present and the pressures I face convince me with the lie that “I do not deserve rest.”
A self-inflicted condemnation, deeming myself sentenced to lashes, expecting falsely that such punishment will ultimately fulfill a works-righteousness requirement because of the lie that “this is my penance, my cross.”

Oh, how arrogant and foolish I am—and, like you, I hurt too.
How do we rest in God’s rest in a burnout culture that demands every inch of our lives, 24/7? We have every opportunity to hear Christ first thing in the morning, but we deliberately turn away from him. Our phones, calendars, and sinful pursuits claim a higher priority, leaving only scraps for God.
How Do We Rest in God’s Rest in a Burnout Culture That Demands Every Inch of Our Lives, 24/7?
Brothers and sisters, this is not what God has created us for! We aren’t meant to live on the throne of our lives, demanding everything and clenching our fists against his love for us. We do not need to live as blind beggars, exhausting ourselves with work, sexual sins, or even seemingly innocent pleasures that won’t deliver what we need: rest and comfort in and through our God.
Without Christ, we walk toward a discouraging destination where we can only arrive tired and hopeless. And you know very well that sexual sins are waiting right around the corner to make that final kill as you sigh, exhausted, after your 14-hour shift.
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There are some sorrows harder even than the sorrow of death, he insists, some griefs deeper even than the grief of bereavement. And while I find little benefit in comparing one kind of grief to another, I am certain the sorrow of watching a living child careen toward hell is every bit as sharp as the pain of losing a child, but knowing he is safely in heaven.

I am worshipping with a congregation that is not my own, a community of Christians on the far side of the planet. Though I am there primarily to learn and to worship, I cannot help but observe one of the members of the church as he sits just in front of me. His wife is pressed close to him on one side and a chair has been left vacant on the other. He rises with the rest of the congregation as the pastor speaks the call to worship. “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.”
“Because God is worthy of our trust,” says the pastor, “you can pour out your heart before him. No matter the circumstances of your life, you can trust him because he is powerful and he is good. So let’s join our hearts and voices together to sing of this good and powerful God.”
The musicians take up the first strains of the opening hymn and the people soon join in.
O worship the King all-glorious above / O gratefully sing his power and his love. / our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days, / pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise.
I observe that as this man begins to sing, he glances toward the door at the back of the room, his eyes searching for something or for someone.
O tell of his might and sing of his grace, / whose robe is the light, whose canopy space. / His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form, / and dark is his path on the wings of the storm.
He sings a few more lines, then looks that way again.
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail, / in you do we trust, nor find you to fail. / Your mercies, how tender, how firm to the end, / our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!
The hymn gives way to a Scripture reading, then to reciting a creed, and still I can see that his attention is divided—
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Written by Matthew Y. Emerson and Brandon D. Smith |
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
The point is clear: the single, perfect, pure communion of love between the persons is poured out on us, as we are loved by the Father because of our union with the Son, whom the Father loves. The love of God is poured out on us by the inseparable work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Trinitarian Unity in Communion
The word communion might bring to mind the Lord’s Supper that Jesus instituted before his death and has been practiced by Christians ever since (Luke 22:7–23; 1 Cor. 11:17–34). For now we will discuss the idea of communion more generally. Here is a simple working definition for communion in Christian theology: the sharing of fellowship among God and his people.
The eternal communion of Father, Son, and Spirit is the grounds for our communion with him and one another. Our triune God, simple and perfect for all of eternity, has always been the one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Scriptures witnessed to the incarnation of the Son and the sending of the Spirit long before these events were made manifest in time and space. The Father did not “become” a Father at some point in time when he decided to create the Son with some unnamed heavenly mother. No, this would insinuate that the Father changed at some point, which would deny Scripture’s claim that God cannot change (Mal. 3:6). Further, this would insinuate that the Son was created, which would deny Scripture’s claim that he is the Creator, not a creature (John 1:1–3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 13:8). Rather, the Father and the Son shared a communion of love with the Holy Spirit in all eternity—indeed, “before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).
If God truly is one (Deut. 6:4), then we cannot treat the persons as a “team” of disconnected beings or three “members” of a “divine dance.” This way of speaking hints strongly at three divine beings who are one only by virtue of agreement or a unity of will.
This is basic anti-Trinitarian Mormon theology. Instead, it’s more fitting to speak the way the Bible speaks: “God is love” (1 John 4:8). This verse is simple and yet packed with rich Trinitarian theology. God is love. He’s not a collection of entities or beings who simply love one another, however deeply, which leads them to work together as some sort of heavenly taskforce. He doesn’t love sometimes and not love other times. He doesn’t wrestle between fluctuating emotions. No, it’s much deeper than that—unfathomably so. The best we can make sense of this is to say with John that Father, Son, and Spirit just are the one God who exists in an inseparable communion of love. God loves us as an outflow of his very nature—the one who loves perfectly and eternally.
This one God who is love exists as three persons who fully and truly are the loving God. Do the three persons love one another? Yes. But we say this only insofar as the Scripture gives us language to distinguish the persons from each other. However, if we exaggerate the oneness, we deny that there are three persons who exist in a perfect and pure life of inseparable, mutual love.
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