What’s your rhythm of rest? Do you have a regular set schedule to take time to recharge and refuel? If not, you need one. Most people I talk with don’t take rest seriously enough. They all know they need more of it, but it always gets pushed to the bottom of the priority list as other things seem to be significantly more urgent.
One thing I’ve seen over and over again is that if you don’t create a rhythm of rest, your circumstance will eventually force you to rest. You will find yourself in a hospital with the doctors running tests trying to figure out what’s wrong or you’ll be sitting in marriage counseling or worse–divorce court wondering how it all went wrong.
We forget that we are human beings that need rest. We aren’t robots. We require rest. You can’t keep charging without taking time to recharge. Mother Teresa said, “To keep a lamp burning you have to put oil in it.”
Do you have joy in your life right now?
Sometimes we lose our sense of joy for no other reason than we aren’t resting. We don’t take time to enjoy the fruits of our labors. We are always trying to figure out how to squeeze more time out of our schedule. This can cause our marriage to suffer, our relationship with our kids to fracture, and our relationship with God to feel distant because we aren’t resting. Everyone is short with each other because they are being shorted of what we all need…REST. Some of you know what I’m saying is true…but you’re thinking…”Yeah, but you don’t understand my life.” That’s probably true…I don’t know the balls you are juggling…but if I can be honest with you…I think that’s a cop out. If you made that excuse for not resting you are letting your life control you, instead of you controlling your life.
You don’t need a new job, a new spouse, or new kids…you need a NEW SCHEDULE. One that includes rest…EVERY WEEK.
When we get overloaded we have a tendency to swing. We let things build up…like you might be feeling today…and then we clear the decks. No more extra curricular activities, no more serving at church; we are quitting everything. Then slowly it builds up again. Have you found yourself in this situation before?
That’s why God gave us the principle of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a rhythm for rest. We work 6 days and take one day to rest…every week. I’m not talking about a couple of hours I’m talking about a day to rest, recharge, and refocus.
Rest is a serious deal to God, even though it often isn’t to us. Rest is so important that God puts it on the same level as not murdering someone or committing adultery. Rest is one of the 10 Commandments, in fact it is the fourth one. Just as important as “thou shalt not steal” is the idea of rest to worship (Exodus 20:9-10).
Rest was so serious to God that if you didn’t rest you were to be put to death (Exodus 31:15). I know that sounds crazy to us today and maybe the fact that it sounds crazy to us should clue us in on the fact that we don’t take a rhythm of rest seriously enough. God was giving the nation of Israel (which had only known slavery, brutality and dominance for the previous 400 years as slaves in Egypt) a new way of life and a social order. In this order they were to rest one day a week and worship God. God loved them so much that He wanted them to ensure they rested. And He wants you to rest too. I bet that if he didn’t have such a strong consequence they wouldn’t have taken it seriously, they would have pushed it off and said things like, “Yeah, but you don’t understand all the stuff I have to get finished before work on Monday.”
Jesus only had 3 years to change the world once He started His public ministry but yet we see the gospels recording Jesus going away to a deserted place and getting away to pray. We see God in Genesis 1 resting after creation, not because He was drained from this monumental task, but because He wanted to establish a rhythm for those who were created in His image. A rhythm of working 6 days and resting 1.
Do you do that? What would it take for you establish a rhythm of rest? The good news is you can start this week!
