In our last blog post, we talked about the benefits of rest on our physical, mental and emotional health – that God didn’t intend for us ever to be Energizer bunnies. He intended from the beginning for us to rest, as seen when he rested on the 7th day after six days of creating the world. The God of the Universe rested. Though he does not tire as we do, he chose to stop working that day. He chose to take a break. Listen to this from Rich Villodas: “Sabbath is not a reward for hard work: it’s a gift we receive. Humanity was created on the 6th day. Their first day was a day of rest. They lived from a place of rest.” On this Instagram post, he then comments,
“The cultural and family scripts that many of us live according to go like this: you can legitimately rest only after you have come to a point of exhaustion. Yet, in the creation story in Genesis, humanity is given a day of rest before they can even get to a point of exhaustion. The point is important: God calls us to work from our rest, not just rest from our work.”
Rich’s Instagram Post
God wants his people to enjoy their time, to quiet their bodies and their minds and simply be. Rest was his idea. He didn’t want us just to rest from our work, but to live out of a place of rest.
God knew we’d be limited from the beginning. We were made in His image (to reflect him), but we aren’t God. We tire and our muscles get sore. Our brains get foggy. He gave us these limits so we’d know our need for him, and so we’d honor our limits. One way we honor our limits is with rest, because as we saw in our last post, rest benefits our brains, our bodies, and our souls so we can live and do the work he’s created us to do.
We won’t dig too deep into what Sabbath, a day or time of rest, can look like in this post because all our lives and schedules are unique. The important thing to see here is God wants us to rest. Not just because we’re tired. No, he wants us to rest simply because it’s what we need. It’s good for us. This means we need to prioritize it because he prioritized it for us.
Though God the Father does not tire as we do or need rest as we do, he chose to come to this world as a human. He chose to live in a limited human body that did tire and whose muscles got sore, too. Yes, he was fully God, but he was also fully man at the same time. Because of this, I love learning from Jesus how to rest.
How Jesus Teaches Us to Rest
He pulled away from the crowds and spent time alone.
When Jesus began his ministry, he was nearly always surrounded by people. Whether it was just a few of his disciples or large crowds of thousands, he was rarely alone. But some of my favorite moments in the gospels are when I get to see more of a glimpse of his humanity— the moments he needs to pull away from others and be alone. We see he was alone in the wilderness for 40 days before he began his ministry. Sometimes he would pray in his time alone, to connect with his Father or prepare for something coming. Sometimes he would grieve alone, like when he found out his friend Lazarus had died. Sometimes he allowed himself to really feel in those moments, like in the garden of Gethsemene.
Some of us recharge by being around others, but the need for quiet and solitude is something Jesus modeled so well for us. It was something he recognized he needed, and we need to know it’s something we need, too, even those of us who are extroverts. Because it’s in the stillness where we can be honest with God, where any walls can come down, and we can just be in a moment.
He took naps.
Like, naps on a boat in the middle of a storm. I love this about Jesus. He is God, so there was no need to worry about a storm, but it’s like he knew he needed to nap after doing a ton of ministry in Matthew 5-8. So, he listened to his body, and napped. Earlier in the chapter, he even said he had nowhere to lay his head when discussing the cost of following him. It’s like he was saying, “I’m tired. I want a nap,” so he let himself have one a little later.
True rest is listening to our bodies and what they need. If we need to nap, can we try to make space for that in our day? If we need to sit down or be still, can we make space for that?
He dined with friends and others.
Rest doesn’t always have to mean sleep or being still and quiet. It can mean that, but it doesn’t always. There were moments Jesus simply hung out with people over a meal. His “ministry” was never turned off in these moments, but it was kind of beautiful how he just allowed himself to be with the people around him in a fun, laid back way. Rest can be with others, too. Rest can be coffee with a good friend or TV night with friends. Rest can be a book club or lunch with coworkers or a family movie night.
There are countless examples in scripture of how God teaches us to rest, how he teaches us to prioritize it, how He shows us that He is our rest. How his presence is our rest. I wish we could look at them all in this space, but the important thing is that God designed rest. And designed us to need it. Can we honor our limits and prioritize rest? Can we rest like we were taught? Can we live from a place of rest instead of resting only when our bodies are shutting down? If we can, I think this is part of the abundant life intended for us. Because a rested life is a healthy life.
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To learn more about how Jesus taught us to rest, you can read The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, by John Mark Comer.
In our next post, we’ll talk about more practical ways to rest so you can begin practicing these healthier habits in your life.
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