Return and Rest

“Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you” (Ps. 116:7, ESV).

The psalmist exhorted himself to return. Returning is a recurrent theme in the Psalms. It’s a holy yearning to get back to the center of life. Getting lost in one’s life is a recurrent reality. It’s necessary to know that we are lost and realize that we need to get back. The psalmist spoke to himself, saying “Return, O my soul, to you rest.” Resting is the means to the end. The Lord God, the Holy One of Israel says, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isa. 30:15a, ESV). We don’t get saved in resting, quietness, and trust. We encounter the peace of God and enter into the presence of God through resting, quietness, and trust: the means to the end. It requires obedience and wisdom to get back to the means because not everyone sees the need to get back to the means. God says, “But you were unwilling” (Isa. 30:15b, ESV).

The reason to get back to the means is in the second half of the verse: “for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.” For is the ground for the psalmist’s returning. He has tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord throughout his life. Such goodness is bountiful. There is no lacking in His holy goodness towards us. Each morning, each day, each night, when we learn to get back to the means of returning, quietness, and trust, we are silently declaring His bounteousness in life. When we are able to declare His bounteousness in action quietly and silently, we start to return and enter into rest in and through which we begin to understand and view our life (daily) concerns differently.