How do you find peace of mind?
The lecture by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III discusses the concept of true rest, explaining that rest is not always found in stopping from work or effort, because there is holy and good labor for God, service, and others.
A person who wants to find rest should first have his soul and conscience at rest in the Lord, while physical rest comes afterward.
He emphasizes that labor offered for God is never wasted, because God does not forget a person’s labor, and every spiritual effort made for a spiritual purpose is counted by Him.
He also explains that true love is shown through giving and labor, and that a person rejoices when he sees the fruit of his labor, just as a farmer rejoices when he sees the harvest of what he has planted.
He gives examples from the Bible and Church history of people who labored for the Lord, such as the Apostle Paul, Saint Athanasius the Apostolic, John the Baptist, and the martyrs and confessors.
Spiritual Message
True rest is not found in escaping responsibility or service; rather, a person can find inner rest in the midst of outward labor when his labor is for God and is done faithfully.
He emphasizes that a person’s rest increases when he seeks the rest of others, because a spiritual person does not think only about his own comfort but rejoices when he brings comfort to someone else.
This truth appears in parenthood, service, and humanitarian work, where a person finds his rest in the well-being of those whom he serves and cares for.
Complete surrender to God also gives a person rest in the midst of problems, because the believer does not focus only on the problem, but places God between himself and the problem and trusts in His providence.
Educational Lesson
The lecture teaches us that rest does not mean laziness or stopping work, just as work does not necessarily mean exhaustion.
Mental rest does not mean that the mind stops, but rather that a person does not exhaust himself through constantly thinking about one problem, and proper work means working while being inwardly at rest.
It also emphasizes that the means by which a person seeks rest should be spiritual and sound, because a person may seek rest through wrong means such as lying, avoiding work, or certain sins, and this is not true rest.
Practical Application
A person should seek his rest in God through prayer, comfort, and the promises of God, and should turn to Him when problems and burdens become heavy.
He should also learn to bring rest to others before seeking his own personal comfort, and make the love of God and service to others the foundation of his rest.
Life with God and surrender to Him give a person inner peace, together with the confidence that problems have an end and that darkness is followed by light.
Therefore, spiritual rest means working without exhaustion, resting without laziness, accepting labor for the sake of God, and making the comfort of others part of one’s own joy and rest.
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