Willing to Rest
by Emerson Kennedy
In our culture, we have a problem with REST. I don’t think it’s farfetched to say that our lives are more hurried and worn out than ever before. Because of the speed at which we live our lives, we find ourselves emotionally drained, mentally burnt out, physically exhausted, spiritually fatigued, and more.
To fix the problem, we resort to putting band aids on the problems to mask our hurry sickness: taking weekend or weeklong trips, bingeing TV or movies, doom scrolling through social media, and more.
But is there a better way?
I’m a big proponent of fixing my system if the results I’m getting aren’t desirable. When we think about REST, we usually think about how much sleep we’re getting, if our work-life balance is okay, if we’re taking vacations, or maybe even if we have a plan to Sabbath soon.
But there’s much more to rest than just stopping. Part of living a REST-FUL life is learning to slow down.
All too often, however, I fail at this. Like a leaf caught in a current, instead of moving at the pace I should, I move at the pace of the world around me. And as I’ve caught myself in this current, I’ve realized that my lack of rest can be chalked up to three main reasons. Maybe you’ll be able to resonate with one of them yourself.
I try to be God.
Our culture tempts us by saying that we’ve got to go all the places, know all the stuff, and do all the things. And it tempts us by saying that not only SHOULD we be able to have it all, know it all, and do it all but that we CAN. In doing so, I think our culture tempts us with the idea that we can “be like God” and transcend our limitations, causing us to speed up our lives.
God’s Word, however, provides a gentle corrective to this.
Genesis 2:7 tells us that we come from the “dust of the ground.” This means that despite our propensity to think otherwise, we must recognize the truth about ourselves: We have limits. I have limits. And it’s when I try and transcend those limits that I wind up being unable to slow down in life.
That’s reason #1: I try to be God. Here’s reason #2.
I don’t believe God.
In Psalm 46:10, God says, “Be still and know that I am God,” a command given even though, “the earth gives way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging” (Psalm 46:2-3).
Sometimes I fail to slow down in life because I don’t believe God will be God for me. Instead of trusting in Him to be who He says He’ll be, I/we try to figure out our issues on our own.
Scattered elsewhere in this psalm, however, is a reminder of God’s character. Throughout this Psalm God is described as our refuge and strength (vs. 1), as an ever-present help (vs. 1), as He who “helps at break of day” (vs. 5), as the “Lord Almighty” (vs. 7), as a “fortress” (vs. 7), as the one who “makes wars cease” (vs. 9), and as the one who “breaks the bow” and “shatters the spear” (vs. 9).
I firmly believe that if I believed God is who He said He is, I’d live at a much slower pace.
That’s reason #2. Here’s reason #3.
I fail to see God.
When we look at Jesus in the gospels, he never looks hurried, does he? Certainly, he had things to do, places to be, people to heal, Pharisees to answer, disciples to disciple, and so on. He had a full schedule. But hurried? I don’t get that impression.
In John 5 Jesus us tells us his one mission. He says, “Very truly I tell you, the Son…can do only what he sees his Father doing.”
I think where I go wrong is that instead of asking, “What is the Father up to?” and working to say “I only will do what the Father is doing,” I lose myself in my countless desires. With more requests, stimuli, and impulses than I could ever satisfactorily cope with, I’m left exhausted and depleted from the tyranny of the urgent, preventing me from living a slow and restful life.
Maybe you have this figured out and don’t wrestle with any of these, but if I were to guess, I’d say you and I aren’t so different. All too often we’re hurried and hassled for one (or more) of the reasons mentioned above, leaving us unable to love God and others like we’re called to.
But contrary to popular belief, what we need to know is that God’s not always looking for the big, the bold, and the bombastic. He’s not looking for the fast and the furious. He’s not looking for the extraordinary, nor for, in the words A.W. Tozer, “the monstrous heresy…of noise, size, activity and bluster…”
No, I believe that God is looking for ordinary folks, working ordinary jobs, in ordinary communities, with ordinary skills, in ordinary churches, willing to REST with an ordinary slow pace so that they can love Him and others well!
