What if we all just made more time for rest?
Jesus said He’d come so we could have “life abundantly” (John 10:10), and He promised us rest when we come to Him weary and heavy-laden (Matthew 11:28). Far too often we try to create restful experiences and fail simply to come.
Wandering into His presence in the midst of laundry or car lines, soccer practices and naptime, these are the opportunities for rest – opportunities we must seek out and embrace. I love what Mark Buchanan says in “The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath” –
“This is the gift of God: to experience the sacred amidst the commonplace – to taste heaven in our daily bread, a new heaven and new earth in a mouthful of wine, joy in the ache of our muscles or the sweat of our brows.”
“To experience the sacred amidst the commonplace” – isn’t that the beauty of true biblical rest? We’re allowed, invited even, into the sacred place of resting in Him at any time.
Rest is more than a nap on Sunday or a quiet moment on the beach. Rest is a state of our spirit – the right orientation, away from the things of this world and toward the Person of Christ. There is only one way to rest – in Him. Why do we continue to seek rest anywhere else?
Our world, even our church world, has made “busy” the noblest pursuit. We schedule and plan and fill each slot on our calendar with increasingly good things, and, slowly, we become idolaters. We worship at the altar of busy. We lust for the feeling of checking things off our lists and we covet the praise of those who say, “I don’t know how you do it all.”
The beginning of rest is true worship … and the reverse is true as well: the beginning of worship is true rest. The inextricable link between these two is profound: “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). As we slow ourselves – from the inside first – we become still, and it is there, like Elijah, that we find God in the gentle whisper (1 Kings 19:11-12).
That whisper is where is starts. A small touch on our hearts that beckons us come closer, to draw into His presence and dwell.
What steps can we take to make resting a priority in our lives?
– Deep breathing. I focus on literally inhaling and exhaling, taking long, deep breaths in and out.
– Create a routine. For me, I sit in the same chair and light a candle and grab my coffee. In the evenings I turn off the computer and read a book that challenges me.
– Take care of ourselves physically. Get enough sleep. Eat right. Exercise. I’m finding that when I fail to be intentional about my physical health, my spiritual health suffers as well.
– Prepare. We have to consider how to make rest happen. Psalm 90:2 says, “For only those who number their days aright gain wise hearts.” The Jewish Sabbath experience requires preparation. If we are going to exhale, to learn stillness, to rest, we’ll have to prepare for it.
Buchanan writes, “The rest of God – the rest God gladly gives so that we might discover that part of God we’re missing – is not a reward for finishing. It is a stop-work order in the midst of work that’s never complete, never finished.”
Can you breathe a sigh of relief at that? We don’t rest because we’re done … we rest because God says we can, we should, we must. We rest because it’s holy.
