I have realized something about myself over the past few years that I am finally taking time to reflect on. It's something that needs to change, and it's not a change that will come easy. I anticipate figuring this out for the rest of my life. The truth is: I have a really hard time resting. On Sunday a friend of mine asked why I don't like taking naps, and my response was, "I feel like I'm wasting time."
Do I think the world can't go on without me? Am I really that important and productive that if I stopped to rest every now and then, everything I've been working toward will become mass chaos? Of course not. But then why do I live that way? In Peter Scazzero's book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, which I am reading at the moment, he dedicates two chapters to the importance of the sabbath. The fourth commandment God gave to His people, in summary, is, "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy." This is one of God's commands-and I have been breaking it my whole life! (Thank you, God, for your lavish grace that allows me to know you still).
The Sabbath is a time to rest and delight in God. It puts God at the center and focus of my week, as I stop work and trust Him to take care of the things I have left undone for the time being. God did it after creating the world in six days, and He invites us into this rest, because He knows we need it. Scazzero calls it "stopping to breath the air of eternity". Even in my free time I am often checking things off of my ongoing list, which doesn't really allow myself to rest in the way I am meant to. A Sabbath can be taken any day of the week for 24 hours, and for those working in full-time ministry it thought wise to take a several month long Sabbatical every eight years or so.
Sometimes I forget that I have limits, and I try to replace God by acting as if I know what is best, and I have all the energy in the world to do it. For my mind to make the shift from "doing" to "being,"
it will take a radical transformation and undoing of habits I have built up for years-but I am ready. I'm ready for the refreshment and rest that God invites me into, so that I can best reflect and glorify Him with the limited time He has given to me.
(Photo taken on our honeymoon in Negril, Jamaica. It is a perfect depiction of rest for a beach lover like myself!)
