Let’s Talk About Rest (Baby)
Well, I made it to my second blog. However, don’t think I’ll become a #bossbabe anytime soon – I don’t fit that 24/7 mold.
That can’t sound like a bad trait, not wanting to hustle every second of the day. Surely it must be good to slow down and not have to stress all of the time. It may sound good and well, but it is not what we expect for modern day Americans. And this endless hustle has pervaded and, I believe, perversed the definition of the Proverbs 31 woman.
We see the list of all the things that this woman accomplished in these twenty-something verses and we assume that this must mean she is the paradigm of the tireless 21st century woman created by social media, society, and economy. The woman who has been told the lie that she can do it all without any consequence. She can work and she can parent and she can maintain a household and be simultaneously successful at it all.
I think this mentality is not only damaging to women, but it completely ignores that the woman talked about in Scriptures lives in a world of seasons. What may be a reality for her at sowing season is not the reality during growing or even down the line at harvesting. I also think it continues to create the idol of what we think we need to be instead of taking into account what it is that God wants us to be.
The Lie of the Rise and Grind
Surely it can’t be a sin or a slap in the face to the Creator to continue to work hard at every single thing we do in every single moment of the day.
But the more that I study Scripture, the more that I do think the grind mentality lends us to habits of sin. Starting with the pridefulness that some of God’s commands apply to us while others do not. Do we think we are much higher than God, as women of the modern world, that we cannot have our moments of rest?
You may think (as did I), But I would NEVER suggest that I was better than God! That would be blasphemy.
I would then ask: Do you rest? Or are you hustling every single day, every single moment that you’ve quickly affirmed the mantra of “rise and grind”?
That wasn’t what God did. Even in the beginning.
Genesis 1:31: God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good. So there was evening, and there was morning, a sixth day.
Genesis 2:1-3: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, along with everything in them. On the seventh day God was finished with his work which he had made, so he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. God blessed the seventh day and separated it as holy; because on that day God rested from all his work which he had created, so that it itself could produce.
At the beginning of the second chapter of Genesis, God purposefully set aside to find time to refrain from creating and instead took time to Be.
God is omnipotent and He does not need to sleep. Which would then make us question why He even rested in the first place.
It was Jesus who provided the answer to the question to the Pharisees:
Then he told them, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. (Mark 2:27)
I am not a parent yet, but I imagine that God’s resting is akin to the simple sentences we speak to infant and toddler children. Young children do not have the ability to understand what we are saying to them nor are they capable of having long thoughtful, complex dialogue with us. They are only able to speak at their level. So we, as good parents and caretakers, go down to theirs.
In the same way, God has been doing this for us since the beginning. He began by teaching us how to create and cultivate. While we will never know how to command planets into existence or speak daylight with a single word, we can accomplish many amazing feats with the talents that God has given us. We created new technologies that allow us to communicate instantaneously with someone across the globe. We develop networks of communities and leaders that allow others to identify where they need to grow, both personally and professionally. We create a symphony with the weaving of simple tones that can bring tears or laughter to a listener. These are not small things– these are echoes of our Creator who brought all of us into being.
We love to celebrate the calling to use our gifts and the abilities – so why then do we shun the other instructions God gave us? Do we think we know what we need better than the One who created us?
If God commanded us to find moments of rest, then certainly He did this for a purpose. He knew that we would not be able to sustain ourselves well if we did not take moments to find peace and rest in the midst of creating and subduing the earth.
Jesus Himself, who was miraculously and simultaneously both God and Man, needed to find moments of rest as He served others on His way to redeem us. Often, after speaking to the crowds, He would slip off to find rest. He even took a nap on a boat in the midst of a storm, much to the Disciple’s chagrin.
God created the Sabbath for a time of rest, which then begs the question – what is rest?
What is rest?
We need to ask ourselves how we define rest for two very important reasons:
Jesus had to put the Pharisees and Sadducees in their place multiple times throughout His ministry on earth as they declared our Messiah as not taking the Sabbath correctly
We have a self focused understanding of self care that is pervasive in our modern, “All About Me” society
It is important for us to understand what rest is so that we can actually achieve it to be refreshed. We must also be careful to not descend into a list of inane rules, as the Jewish leaders did in Jesus’ time.
Here comes the hard part: I cannot define for you what rest is.Like our individual gifts and talents, the things that make us whole and healthy vary from individual to individual.
Some of the people I know find rest in hiking up tall mountains on their days off. Others find it by watching a sporting event and taking a good nap on Sunday. Some find their rest in spending the day surrounded by others, fully immersed in the Word of God. Others find rest in spending hours in a musical worship service. I find life in listening to certain genres of music that put my husband to sleep, while he finds rest in music that I find more invigorating and stimulating. The thought of reading a book to my spouse would be a chore, while my brother-in-law and I find rest in the activity.
None of these are wrong, but do not be discouraged if not all (or maybe even none) of these bring you rest.
While what brings our soul peace may vary from person to person, there should be a common thread in all that we do to rest – whatever we do should have us tapping into the Well of Life. We should be engaging at minimum in a weekly Sabbath to allow time for us to practice spiritual disciplines.
Creating Eden
Another facet of studying rest that we need to acknowledge as both our blessing and our curse is that we women are good at multitasking. I believe God designed us this way because He meant for us to be helpmeets and nurturers, which means we have other people’’s worlds that we naturally juggle along with our own.
But if we take an honest look at ourselves, we have to admit that it becomes hard to focus on something in the midst of the balancing act.
God created us in the garden because He longed to walk with us. While our foremother and father made choices that meant we can no longer physically enter Eden, it does not preclude us from a need for one. We must make sure that we set aside time during the week to walk with God.
I cannot define what this is for you. That could mean that Sundays requires getting up early and enjoying some time in prayer before going off to corporate worship. It could mean sleeping a little longer or eating a nourishing meal to be best prepared to listen to all that God in quiet moments. It could mean fasting for the day as our heart grieves or wrestles over something. It could mean spending a little more time in worship that afternoon on the way home because the music stirred us to focus on the Creator just a little longer.
It might mean the typical corporate worship on Sunday morning. It may look like something different in the season of life you are in. Again, ebbs and flows make it so we cannot create one distinct rule that defines the Sabbath – the Pharisees and the Sadducees failed in trying to do so and were often reprimanded by Jesus for their efforts to confine Him in a box.
This means we need to make it the practice of encountering God on our own because He is not in a box. It is important that we find rest, that we drink deeply from the Well of Life.
Concluding Thoughts
In seasons of business, rest may be a day during the week specifically set aside to practice and explore spiritual disciplines. During quieter seasons, it may mean that we can take long walks in our vineyards as we are waiting for the harvest to come, speaking with the First Love of our life and worshiping Him in song and dance. It might mean we can volunteer more time at church or invest more into a bible study that requires more of us.
Slow seasons are blessings for us because we can walk more frequently in the garden. Busy seasons do not excuse us from finding moments of rest. Jesus went to the garden to weep and to pray between His last supper and His final sacrifice. Moments to connect and receive the Father’s blessing and the Spirit’s strength.
I know that one of the goals I have this year in my seasons and moments of rest is to learn more about the various spiritual disciplines that God commanded and Jesus demonstrated in His time on earth. I want to learn more about rhythms that I am ignorant of because we in modern America have boiled church down to a couple hours on Sunday and a weekday evening, and always corporately and on display. I want to learn more about engaging the Spirit on my own.
I want to encourage you to do your own investigation to discover what brings you rest and what brings you life. Find the ways you can connect with your Creator in your own rhythms and seasons.
Forget the idea that in order to succeed you have to hustle 24/7. God often brings prosperity to those that follow Him, not those that seek to accomplish on their own. Seeking Him will mean more in the span of eternity than a couple extra dollars in the bank.
Find Who brings you Life in the midst of your rest.