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The end of July is fast approaching. This always is a signal to me that summer is over and it’s time to get back in school mode. School actually starts this year on the 14th of August, and softball tryouts start the week before, so my summer vacation is just about complete.
I know many of you are reading this and thinking, “Oh, you’re breaking my heart; you’ve been off the past two months.” This is true, and it is a definite perk for teachers, but how many of us, teachers or not, really ever rest or recharge like we should, like we need to?
I mean even when we go on a destination vacation, it is often go-go-go-do-do-do, so much so that we return home needing a vacation from our vacation. Normally, we work long hours all week, and when the weekend comes and we should have time to rest and recharge, we fill the days with things we didn’t have time to accomplish during the work week, so we head into Monday morning just as tired as we left Friday evening.
We find our rest or downtime late in the evening as we plop down on the couch and stream a show or scroll through Tik Tok or Facebook. All these activities do is numb our minds for a few minutes, but we often feel it is a necessity because our brain is always running at 100 mph, so at least this seems to put it in neutral.
We all feel this is the norm. After all, that is the way our society has groomed us. We are a society always on the go. We were taught to be go-getters. The operative word there is go. If you aren’t going, something is wrong. Of course, there is nothing wrong with being a go-getter, but to be always on the go, you must have rest; you must slow down. If a car keeps running nonstop, it will eventually run out of gas. The car has to stop at a gas station and fill up. If you don’t get rest, like your car, you will run out of gas.
This is the way we were designed. From the very beginning, God built rest into the framework of life. He even modeled it for us as on the seventh day He rested. God, the all-powerful creator of the universe, rested. Let that really resonate for a second. If God took a rest, shouldn’t we? After all, we aren’t even close to an all-powerful being.
Rest used to be somewhat a part of our society. I’m sure there are those reading this who remember when everything was closed on Sunday, including restaurants, stores, etc. Of course some only know that Chick-fil-A is now closed that day. This again speaks to the way society has become and the fact that we can’t look to it, or anywhere else in this world, to get the true rest we need. Only the Lord can give us real rest. After all, He told us in Matthew to come to Him and He will give us rest. That is easy to say and nice to think about, but what does that really look like?
The Lord wants to give us rest…a real rest that truly recharges our mind, body and soul. He has designed us to rest in Him, because He wants us to trust Him with our future and present plans. It is only when we trust Him that we can find the rest and peace from our ever-running brains, the reprieve from our anxious, hectic lives, as Paul writes in Philippians 4:6.
I know this is something I struggle with daily. With my mouth, I say that God has a plan for me, but so often I fail at trusting/resting in that fact. I get anxious, wound up, angry, confused or any other word you can think of that is opposite of the peaceful rest that the Lord can provide. Forgetting, or just being distracted, I don’t take situations to the Lord in prayer and allow Him to give me the rest I need because I never slow down enough to give Him a chance.
“Be still and know that I am Lord.” I’ve always loved this verse, but I so often do not live it out. I don’t stop, quiet myself, and let the Lord draw near. I find it hard to be still before the Lord. It is difficult to shut everything else out and just be with Him, but this is something that has to be done, if we are to find the rest the Lord wants us to have. King David really showed us this when he wrote Psalm 23.
In one of the most famous Psalms in the Bible, we are told that the Lord makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters, He refreshes my soul. All of these paint a beautiful picture of the restorative, restful power the Lord has for us. The next verse speaks of walking through the darkest valley. It is interesting that as David laid this psalm out, he placed the restful portion first. God’s rest not only prepares us for the next day, it also prepares us for those dark valleys that we all walk through.
I know that I could certainly use a rest like that. So I am challenging you right along with myself to make finding God’s rest a priority. I am going to set real time aside for the Lord, not just five minutes here or there, but times where I can really be still and know that He is God. And I’m going to continue to work on trusting Him – not just saying it with my mouth, but trusting Him with my heart.
As we head back to our busy lives, I hope we can all find some real rest in the Lord in these coming months and beyond.
