Devotional:

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” — Matthew 11:28-30

It’s so hard to rest in this world of technology and fast-paced living. We are spread so thin, and we just keep grinding, working, shuttling kids, serving, going to church every time the doors are open, signing up for this, going to that, checking our social media…we never rest.

We wonder why we are always so exhausted. Not only do we feel exhausted physically, but we feel this deep weariness in our souls. We have this overwhelming need to stop, breathe and listen. Yet, we ignore it and keep going for fear of dropping the ball, missing out on something or maybe even hearing a word from God. A word that we are afraid to hear.

The rat race of life takes so much out of us emotionally and physically. And at the same time, we are expected to keep smiles on our faces, great attitudes and plug along like the little work ants we are.

How do we keep it up without completely losing it to the point of physical and emotional failure? We can’t. Eventually, it catches up with us in one way or another. We can begin to resent the ones around us that seem to take so much from us. We can begin to feel emotional strains on relationships and even physical strains on our bodies when we don’t stop to rest, listen and breathe.

Why is rest such a dirty word? Back before technology, you know, little things like electricity, computers, cell phones and television, you didn’t have a choice but to rest. Dark meant it was bedtime, forcing a full night of sleep. Imagine that! There was no internet scrolling or Netflix show that kept you up until 2:00am making you hate life the next day.

We say over and over again that we don’t seem to have enough hours in the day to do all the things we have on our lists, when the reality is, we choose this pattern. And it leads us to a very complacent Christian life. We can be busy doing all the “Christian” things and because of our busyness, we forget what it means to be a Christian. It seems impossible to jump off the merry-go-round that we live on day after day. We are so afraid to rest. Maybe it isn’t the rest we are afraid of. Maybe it is all the other things that come with rest.

You could be going through extreme physical exhaustion, an illness or family drama. Whatever it is, during those times God tries to tell you to slow down either through physical signs or emotional signs. What do you do with that? Do you instead turn up the volume and speed up your life just to drown Him out? Are you afraid to stop because you know that stopping will force you to listen to God? That can be scary. And it’s really scary when you’ve been ignoring Him for a while.

Loving God and loving others requires rest.

God wants us to rest in Him. He welcomes us into his arms as an invitation for rest. He is the only one who can restore us, heart, soul, mind and strength. We cannot fully embrace the love of Christ if we are neglecting ourselves. Because neglecting ourselves means we are neglecting our relationship with Him. We cannot serve others well unless we first take care of ourselves. We cannot love others well if we don’t first love ourselves. God desires our rest to be fully dependent on Him. A rest that only He can provide.

“And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” — Genesis 2:2-3

Rest is an act of worship.

God made it up. He finished all of His work in six days and declared the seventh day a day of rest and reflection on His creation. Isn’t that what we do when we worship? We rest in His presence, reflect on the goodness of God and we sing His praises for all that He has done for us.

When we gather for worship, we are posturing ourselves physically and spiritually at His feet, allowing Him to give us rest for our souls. Worship is all about pouring out our praises to Jesus; it’s not about us. But somehow, when we leave, we can’t explain it, but the sense of peace, renewal of our affections for Him and our strength and attitudes toward others, it’s just different.

In our act of worship to Him, He pours Himself out to us. What a gift. Without that kind of rest, it is difficult to fully be in His presence and seek His goodness, His wisdom, His love, His grace and His mercy. It can’t just be for one hour on a Sunday. That rest must come daily.

“And he said to them, ’The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’” — Mark 2:27

The word Sabbath comes from the Hebrew word Shabbat meaning “to rest.”

Shabbat is celebrated from Friday at sunset to Saturday at sunset. Now, if you were to go with us to Jerusalem one day, you will quickly realize you don’t want to be there during Shabbat. Nothing is open, you can’t find food, and you most definitely don’t want to be staying on the top floor of a tall hotel building during Shabbat.

Remember the scene from Elf when he pushed all the buttons on the elevator because the lights looked like a Christmas tree? Well, on Shabbat, apparently you aren’t allowed to push buttons. So, they rig the elevators to automatically stop at every floor, no matter what.

The elevators in Jerusalem remind me of the extreme religiosity of the Pharisees in this passage in Mark. If you read it in context, Jesus is saying this in response to the Pharisees accusing the disciples of disobeying the Sabbath. All they were doing was picking grain to munch on as they were walking through the fields. But it was on the Sabbath. And the laws of the Pharisees had become so burdensome and restricting that they completely missed the point of the Sabbath.

The Sabbath was meant to help God’s people, not burden them.

Rest is yours to take.

Your rest is your time with Jesus. It is for you alone. It’s not to get ready for the next Bible study you have to lead, or prayer group you’ve been asked to come to or church function you’ve signed up to volunteer at.

It means taking the things of this world that rob us of our time, putting them aside, and replacing them with more of Him. Time with Jesus is precious. The more time you spend with Him, the more you crave it. The more you long for it. You begin to feel empty without it. It has been given to us as a gift. We have to accept the gift and be selfish with it.

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.” — Psalm 23:1-3

I don’t know about you, but if the Lord “makes me lie down,” I should probably listen. It sounds like a command to me. It is God’s desire to give his children rest. If it weren’t, why would we need to spend a third of our life sleeping?

What is robbing you of your rest? Rest requires us to fully trust in Him, putting reliance on our own works to the side. We must stop the busyness of our lives and come to Him with all of our burdens, exhaustion, weariness, anxieties and fears. The day-to-day things in this world that can rob us of rest are the very things that keep us from surrendering everything to Jesus. Even if those are “church” things.

When we begin to believe that it’s all up to us, that no one can do it but us, we lose sight of the gift God has placed in our lives. Rest isn’t something to be ignored. It is a gift that can be life-changing for us if we took hold of what it actually meant.

God, thank You for the gift of rest. Thank You for allowing me to rest completely in Your presence. Forgive me when I forget to rest. Help me to focus on You during the times I do. Lord, drown out the noise of the world so that I can hear Your voice again. Amen