Pastor's Corner February 27, 2023
Rest
Do you ever feel like you get too much rest? How about not enough rest? Nowadays we are some of the most sleep deprived people in history, but how can that be? You may be thinking that we are so restless because of how much we work, but we actually work less as a society now than in the past before the five day work week. You may be thinking there is no way we get less rest because in the past, we had to wake up when the sun came up and weren't as comfortable during the winter or summer. But in the past, people went to bed earlier. So how can this be?
Screens, schedules, and the drive to do. We surround ourselves with screens and busyness. We overload our individual or family schedules to the point that nearly every minute is booked. We stay up later watching TV, doing extra work, or stay up trying to maintain a house, a family, and everything in between.
I am guilty of neglecting rest and prioritizing other things. In our culture, there is a saying, "I can sleep when I am dead." I think that is a fitting phrase that summarizes how we approach rest. We are doing too much, don't have enough help, and we prioritize small things so big things such as rest, community, intentionality with others, and things we enjoy doing get placed on the backburner with little to no chance of coming first.
I write this while sitting in a hotel in Fort Bliss, TX the night before waking up very early to spend time with Soldiers. This week, I am here for only 56 hours, but then I go home for less than 24 hours to then fly to Atlanta to drive to Birmingham, AL for two days, then flying back here. I know that at the end of this week, rest will be needed. But, is it just me who always feels like a scheduled rest is needed?
The good news is that God doesn't want us to do everything, all the time. He knows that we are unable to make the world go round, so he instituted Sabbath rest at the very beginning of creation. The bad news is that actually observing the Sabbath is incredibly difficult nowadays. The Sabbath was created for humanity to rest, rather than humanity being made to have to observe rest. It is a gift and a blessing, not a curse. I could talk about Sabbath for weeks, but this is how I want to end today: what can you do this week to intentionally spend time with Jesus in the form of physical and mental rest? How can you develop rhythms in your life to intentionally rest and invite others to do the same?
Activity: take two minutes to think about what activities are restful in your life? Take a minute and think about things that drain you physically, mentally, and spiritually. Schedule something this week for rest. It could be 15 minutes one day, an hour a different day, or making one day your Sabbath day where you do nothing that would be considered work, nothing that fits in your draining category.
Do you ever feel like you get too much rest? How about not enough rest? Nowadays we are some of the most sleep deprived people in history, but how can that be? You may be thinking that we are so restless because of how much we work, but we actually work less as a society now than in the past before the five day work week. You may be thinking there is no way we get less rest because in the past, we had to wake up when the sun came up and weren't as comfortable during the winter or summer. But in the past, people went to bed earlier. So how can this be?
Screens, schedules, and the drive to do. We surround ourselves with screens and busyness. We overload our individual or family schedules to the point that nearly every minute is booked. We stay up later watching TV, doing extra work, or stay up trying to maintain a house, a family, and everything in between.
I am guilty of neglecting rest and prioritizing other things. In our culture, there is a saying, "I can sleep when I am dead." I think that is a fitting phrase that summarizes how we approach rest. We are doing too much, don't have enough help, and we prioritize small things so big things such as rest, community, intentionality with others, and things we enjoy doing get placed on the backburner with little to no chance of coming first.
I write this while sitting in a hotel in Fort Bliss, TX the night before waking up very early to spend time with Soldiers. This week, I am here for only 56 hours, but then I go home for less than 24 hours to then fly to Atlanta to drive to Birmingham, AL for two days, then flying back here. I know that at the end of this week, rest will be needed. But, is it just me who always feels like a scheduled rest is needed?
The good news is that God doesn't want us to do everything, all the time. He knows that we are unable to make the world go round, so he instituted Sabbath rest at the very beginning of creation. The bad news is that actually observing the Sabbath is incredibly difficult nowadays. The Sabbath was created for humanity to rest, rather than humanity being made to have to observe rest. It is a gift and a blessing, not a curse. I could talk about Sabbath for weeks, but this is how I want to end today: what can you do this week to intentionally spend time with Jesus in the form of physical and mental rest? How can you develop rhythms in your life to intentionally rest and invite others to do the same?
Activity: take two minutes to think about what activities are restful in your life? Take a minute and think about things that drain you physically, mentally, and spiritually. Schedule something this week for rest. It could be 15 minutes one day, an hour a different day, or making one day your Sabbath day where you do nothing that would be considered work, nothing that fits in your draining category.
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