I mentioned on Monday’s post of quotes that I finished Hoping for Something Better: Refusing to Settle for Life as Usual, a Bible study by Nancy Guthrie, but I am rereading it again in an effort not to let its truths and lessons slip away.

I wanted to share a few of Nancy’s thoughts in a section titled “What Keeps Us From Real Rest?” from the chapter discussing Hebrews 3:1-4:13.

When the Israelites left Egypt, they looked forward to getting to the Promised Land — a place of their own, a place where they would no longer be slaves, a place where “they would finally be at home…finally put down roots and really rest” (p. 42).

And yet, as surely as the Promised Land was theirs for the taking and as much as they wanted it, something kept them from entering the rest that God held out to them. The writer to the Hebrews wants us to see what kept them from rest so we can avoid the same aimless wandering in the desert and ultimately dying in the wilderness that those children of Israel experienced (p. 42).

Nancy then brings from the passage the things that the Bible says kept them from rest:

1. Hardness of heart

Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. (Hebrew 3:7-9)

We see that exemplified in the Israelites’ complaining and disobedience — they even went so far as to wish they had stayed as slaves in Egypt.

Nancy then explores some ways hearts can get hard. She mentions that broken hearts can become hard, just as when we try to fix something that was broken with glue, yet the spot of the break develops a hard ridge. She admonishes “Don’t let your hurts harden you against God. Let your hurts become the places where God can work on you to mold you into his likeness as you stay soft toward him” (p. 43).

She then points out that “hardness of heart is also something we develop when we experience conviction of sin but choose not to repent” (p. 43), just like a place that is rubbed raw and develops a blister eventually gets to the point of developing a callous that doesn’t feel much of anything.

You could probably also assert from the Israelite’ situation that a lack of faith, a lack of applying what they knew of God, a failure to “seek…and set your affection on things above” (Colossians 3:1-3) contributed to their hardness of heart and can contribute to ours.

2. Believing a Lie

But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:13)

“Only by saturating our minds with Scripture can we be equipped to recognize the voice of the liar in our lives and avoid the deceitfulness of sin that will rob us of rest” (p. 44).

3. Disobedience from unbelief

And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. (Hebrews 3:18-19)

The children of Israel would have said they believed in God, and yet they didn’t believe God’s promise that he would give them victory over the giants in the land. Therefore they didn’t obey God to go in and take the land.

Is there a giant in the landscape of your life that has you intimidated? What unbelief is keeping you out of God’s blessing because you don’t believe God is big enough or powerful enough or good enough to help you overcome it? (pp. 44-45).

She then mentions perhaps God has called us to do something and promised to supply everything we need to perform it, yet we hold back, or we wrestle with some sin we’ve asked forgiveness for and yet don’t believe he has forgiven, and other scenarios where “the problem” isn’t the problem, but the lack of faith keeps us from entering into real rest, resulting in disobedience.

She closes this section with, “What unbelief has led to disobedience in your life? Won’t you chose to believe God’s Word and thereby enter into the rest of God?” (p. 45)

I had heard many of these individual points before, but I had never heard this really laid out in this way, and it was a good admonition to remind me to guard my heart and watch for those places where I am allowing hardness, untruth, and disobedience to creep in.

I’ve mentioned before that I went to a middle school that was extremely cliquish, with set groups which didn’t interact much with each other or anyone new. It made it very hard for a new person to make friends unless someone in one of the groups noticed them and brought them in.

But sometimes I hear people who feel a little on the outside of things accuse other people of being cliquish, and that’s not always the case. It’s especially sad when people feel that way in church. I imagine, human nature being what it is, it’s possible there are some churches which do have cliques, and that’s abominable. But sometimes it’s just a matter of certain groups of people who know each other better just because they do things together. Unfortunately, when people do feel they’re in the outer fringes of a group, they tend to pull away more, making them even less a part of the group, making them feel even more like an outsider, and so the cycle goes.

But you can’t get closer to people that you don’t spend any time with. And you won’t feel part of the group if you rarely interact with the group.

Some years back our church had a little fellowship time between Sunday School and church with coffee and sometimes doughnuts or muffins. It was a chance to talk with people and to get up and mill around in between an hour or so of Sunday School and another hour or more of church time. Most people got up to move around a bit and stood and talked in smaller groups near where the coffee was served. There were also soft drink machines on that side of the room for those who preferred that to coffee. There was one couple — a middle-aged couple who had attended the church for years, so they weren’t new — who pretty much always sat off to themselves on the other side of the room. I don’t think anyone thought anything of it — if I had I probably would have thought they didn’t want anything to eat or drink or preferred to sit rather than stand or walk around. But some months later I heard they “didn’t feel a part of things.” I was astounded. I probably thought something like, “And whose fault is that?” To literally place oneself away from everyone else and not interact and then not feel a part of things! People did sit at their table during the Sunday School hour, so it’s not like no one ever interacted with them.

It is true that we tend to gravitate toward people we already know. Our church has regular fellowships during the summer after Wed. night services. When we go through the line to get our refreshments and then turn and look for a place to sit, it’s natural to look for friends to catch up with, especially since we pretty much see most of them only at church. And we should, at least some times, seek out new people or people we don’t know as well.

When my husband and I first came to our present church and would go to these fellowships, we somehow often ended up as one of the first people going through the line and finding an empty table. But then no one came to sit with us for a few weeks in a row. We could have sat there feeling sorry for ourselves, but instead, we began to hang back so we weren’t first in line, and then, as we looked for a place to sit, we’d find a table where a few people were seated and asked if we could join them. Introductions and small talk ensued and eventually spun off into relationships. Should someone have sought us out as the new people? Probably. But it would have made it worse if we hadn’t taken some initiative. It took me a good year to really feel a part of things there, but it wasn’t because people were exclusive and unwilling to be friendly. Some of those people had known each other for thirty years, and it just took time as a new person to develop relationships: I couldn’t expect to have the same intimacy within a few weeks as those who had known each other longer.

I would advise anyone who “doesn’t feel a part of things” to:

1. Go where the people are.

2. Don’t hold yourself aloof. Interact, even if you feel awkward at first.

3. Go to some functions that you might not be interested in for the fellowship if not the activity.

4. Talk to people! Don’t wait for them to come to you!

The Bible says that “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly” (Proverbs 18:24). Aloof people don’t have many friends. You may feel that you’re not aloof, you’re just shy, but it can come across the same way.

Reaching out to others is harder if you’re naturally shy and quiet. I was one of the shyest, most self-conscious people on the planet: I would almost panic if I was in a group and someone asked me a question, trying to draw me into the conversation. That is still my default mode: even now it is hard for me to raise my hand to answer a question in a Sunday School class or share a prayer request in prayer meeting. But I can testify that the Lord can give grace to overcome that natural tendency.

One thought that has helped me a lot over the years was shared by a former pastor’s wife during an officer’s meeting for a ladies’ group. She was encouraging the various officers to speak up as they gave their reports, because it did no one any good if they couldn’t hear what was said, and then she remarked, “Self-consciousness is consciousness of self, and we’re supposed to forget self.”

The more I am thinking about myself — the thought of people looking at me, wondering how they will receive me — the more I am likely to retreat into my own shell. But if I try to forget myself and focus on the other person, everything goes much better.

Every encounter or attempt to make conversation won’t be successful, but don’t let that deter you. “People skills” can be developed. But you have to exercise them to develop them.