Resting At Noon

Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon?

Song of Solomon 1: 7

We have lost the art of “resting at noon.” Many are slowly succumbing to the strain of life because they have forgotten how to rest. The steady stream, the continuous uniformity of life, is what kills.

Rest is not a sedative for the sick, but a tonic for the strong. It spells emancipation, illumination, transformation. It Saves us from becoming slaves even of good works.

One of our Cambridge naturalists told me once of an experiment he had made with a pigeon. The bird had been born in a cage and had never been free; one day his owner took the bird out on the porch of the house and flung it into the air. To the naturalist’s surprise the bird’s capacity for flight was perfect. Round and round it flew as if born in the air; but soon its flight grew excited, panting, and the circles grew smaller, until at last the bird dashed full against its master’s breast and fell to the ground. What did it mean? It meant that, though the bird had inherited the instinct of flight it had not inherited the capacity to stop, and if it had not risked the shock of a sudden halt the little life would have been panted out in the air.

Rest is not a sedative for the sick, but a tonic for the strong.

Isn’t that a parable of many a modern life: completely endowed with the instinct of action, but without the capacity to stop? Round and round life goes in its weary circle until it is almost dying at fill speed. Any shock, even some severe experience, is a mercy if it checks the whirl. Sometimes God stops such a soul abruptly by some sharp blow of trouble, and the soul falls in despair at His feet, and then He bends over it and says: “Be still my child; be still and know that I am God!” until by degrees the despair of trouble is changed into submission and obedience, and the poor, weary, fluttering life is made strong to fly again.

-Taken from from Springs in the Valley (1968) by Cowman Publications, Inc.