The act of resting often carries with it a stigma of indulgence. That is, if you have time for it, people assume you don’t work hard enough or comments from friends such as ‘I wish I had time for that’ can corner you into feeling guilty if each second of your day isn’t spent being ‘busy’. We can wind up feeling like we need to constantly fill our time and that can be with work, exercise, socialising, cleaning or end up wasting any precious down time reading pointless social media updates.
I struggle to rest. I cram a billion things into my days and my mind is always whirling. But lately, God has been teaching me the importance of rest and how to rest. There are two verses that were laid on my heart this week:
1. Psalm 46:10:
This has been a reminder to stop and be still. I need to give myself the time to reflect on who God is, how powerful and loving he is and remind myself to trust him. When I have a God this great, there isn’t a reason for me to worry or try to do everything myself. As I’ve been reminding myself of this my days have been much more enjoyable and my stress slowly reducing.
2. ‘He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.’ Psalm 91:1 (NIV)
This verse has taught me two things:
1. That I will find my rest in God alone.
2. To do this I need to make time for him. I need make time to stop, read His word, be thankful for His unfailing love and talk to Him about what is going on in my life. These of course, don’t all have to be at once. For instance, taking a walk to the park and spending time reflecting on God’s love and the beauty of his creation would still be an act of rest. God says we will find rest if we ‘dwell’ in Him. The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘dwell’ as ‘to live in’. Thus to find rest in God, it must be regular time spent with God. For example, we don’t say we live at a friends home when we only visit them once a month.We live in our own home where we spend each night. In the same way, we aren’t dwelling in God if we only spend time with him sporadically, or shoot up a prayer when things aren’t going our way.
You have the power to choose how you spend your time, don’t take on extra things that will only leave you feeling frazzled. Make time to rest, for God says there is value in being still.
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