Why Do I Need to Rest?
Rest is something that we talk about as Christians, but I think we don’t take it as seriously as we should. Even though there seems to be a general acknowledgment that rest is good for us, we don’t talk about it as though it’s God’s command. Usually, the conversation of rest seems to come down to “Do Christians need to observe the Sabbath?” rather than “Do Christians need to rest?”
That’s one of the reasons I talk about rest vs. sabbath. That word has a lot of theological ideas surrounding it, and I think at the simplest understanding of what God wants for us, it’s rest. I mean, that’s what God showed us in Genesis 2:2, rest:
On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work.
If we simply start by setting aside regular time to rest, we’re probably doing better than we were. But just at the thought of setting aside dedicated time to rest, I know a lot can go through our minds.
- I don’t have time
- What can’t I do
- What can I do
- I’ll get bored
- I have kids
Just to name a few of my reasons.
Setting aside time to intentionally rest never seemed like a big deal while I was single. I could work as hard as I wanted, and then all the rest of my time was spent resting. There were two problems with this. My rest was never an intentional part of my relationship with God. I was resting from work, but I wasn’t resting in him. Two, it didn’t set up any habits for my future when a husband and kids took up time and left me with no margin.
What got me started
This past year I think, is when I started feeling the strain of just day in and day out with no freedom from the grind. And a couple of things helped me understand that we need to rest and what that should look like.
The first thing was doing a book study with some other ladies from work, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. This book, I feel, was one of the more practical conversations I’ve ever had about rest and the sabbath and a more straightforward, slower pace. The book presented it as a way to trust in Jesus more and showed what life could look like with rest as a more robust pillar in our faith walk.
This book also brought back a tool I had learned years ago but didn’t really register to me, called rest and abide, which is the concept that work comes out of rest, not resting because of work. And it seems like an arbitrary distinction, but when you think about how Jesus lived his life, it was much more about resting and working from that rest than the other way around.
The last thing that made me want to take rest seriously this year was a guest speaker we had come to talk to the staff. He talked more about what the sabbath is and isn’t and boiled starting out down to intentional time with God, having fun, and not being distracted. It seems simple enough.
I care deeply about the work I do as a minister and the ministry I’m starting on this blog, but God’s worked hard on me over the last three years to realize that I can’t care for everything all the time, and it isn’t my job to save people. So at the end of the day, I have to do the work God has given me, let others do their work, and leave the results up to God.
How to Start
So do you agree you need to rest? Here are a couple of first steps to identify where you’re at in rest and what your growth opportunities might be.
- Do you stop working professionally and/or personally?
- When do you rest, and for how long?
- Is your rest accidental or intentional?
- What would 24hrs of the rest look like to you?
Try working through those questions and determine what you can do this week. Could you make your lunch break a rest period? Is there a free Saturday you can block for no plans? Do you have time while your kids nap? Pick a window of at least 30 minutes to rest in God and plan what that will look like. Tell the people who need to know it’s blocked for intentional rest, and do it.
Stay Weird
