Fighting back the emotions she answers, “I don’t know how to relax… it’s harder than it looks.” Chili is on the verge of the discovery we’ve been making from John 5:1-18. Real rest is gained from a person: Jesus Christ.

We’ve escaped on a vacation, came home, and needed a vacation from vacation. We’ve tried to optimize our life by reorganizing the kitchen pantry or updating our bullet journal but still go to bed just as anxious and sleepless. Why is this so? John 5 explains that real rest is not in a place or a plan, but in a person.

When our bodies and hearts are weary escape and optimize are our go to renewal strategies. Some of us think that an escape to the beach or the mountains will provide the R-and-R we need. “After a trip to our favorite get away we will be good as new,” we tell ourselves. A number of us hope that optimizing our to-do lists, calendars, and paycheck routines will finally give rest to our restless hearts. Unfortunately, like so many of us have discovered, we have escaped and optimized but our bodies and hearts are still so tired. Here, we need the words of Augustine of Hippo who said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

Eternal life is a key theme throughout John’s gospel. The kind of life John is presenting is the kind that begins in the present and will continue forever. It is life from God (1:13; 3:3, 5). Life that never ends sounds cool and all, but only if there is a certain quality to it. Eternal life according to John is marked by the love of God (3:16; 13:34-35; 1 John 4:8-12). So then we should say that eternal life is to know and enjoy God’s life and love. This should be incredibly appealing to us.

Proverbs is about living wisely in this world, and at first glance, it might seem that wisdom is about the right action. Do this. Don’t do that. Instead, this book teaches that true wisdom begins with the heart. It’s not first and and foremost about knowing the right thing or doing the right thing. True wisdom begins with enjoying the right things: enjoying God, creation, and neighbor. Sin exchanges enjoyment for exploitation. Yet, for the joy set before him, Christ Jesus—who is the Wisdom of God—endured the exploitation of the cross so that we might come to enjoy life with God. As we behold the Jesus of the cross and empty tomb we will become like him. Welcomed into his joy, his joy will be poured into our hearts, and his joy will overflow in our lives. As we become like Wisdom himself only then can we enjoy God for his own beauty and the creation and neighbors he gave to us. This is true wisdom.