Freedom in Resting

“But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work… For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

Exodus 20:10-12

God is God, and I am not.

That is the most freeing statement!

It is easy as a mom of young children to think that I have to do all-the-things and that I’ll rest when the girls are older. But one of the beautiful things about spending time with women who are farther along in life (which I get to do frequently!), is hearing their wisdom and perspective. And what I’m learning is that life doesn’t always slow down, unless we practice and make a habit of slowing down. My personality is to be busy – to have tasks, activities, and commitments. I enjoy that! And if I don’t practice resting now, I will continue to fill my schedule long after my girls have outgrown the need for me to meet their every immediate need.

Resting will only become a habit if I practice it, even when, especially when, my schedule is packed.

For me right now, obeying God’s command to rest has three practical implications: It means I am free to lay down my daily tasks out of faith; It means I am free to say “no” to new things without guilt; and it means I am free to say “yes” to a few excellent things out of joy.

Resting frees me to lay down my daily tasks:

Confession: I am not very good at resting! I have convinced myself that Sundays need to be filled with “getting ready for the week ahead”. How many times have I told myself “I’ll be a better wife/friend/mom this week if I do this whole list of things on Sunday afternoon?

But this past Sunday afternoon, Rob built a fire and the five of us gathered around it – and it was SO GOOD! I read a book, the girls watched a show, and Rob admired his handiwork. We sat. We stopped. We rested. And that act of laying down our to-do list, not looking at our email, not running one more load of laundry, not worrying about the commitments, and stresses of the week ahead was our act of faith in the Lord and in His ability to meet all our needs.

Trusting Jesus to keep the world spinning instead of me is an act of love and trust.  It’s me loving God with all my heart, and all my mind and even all my strength. Saying that God’s strength is better than mine. Saying that my heart needs a rest from worrying. Saying my mind needs a rest from decision making. All those things acknowledge that God is God, and that I am not. And every time I remember that – it is an act of love towards God!

It’s also an act of love toward others. Resting, pausing, laying down the things that bring worry and stress gives me time to recharge. I convince myself all the time that I can’t rest on Sundays because then I’ll be too busy during the week to love others well. But the opposite is true. Finding time to rest in Jesus means I’ll be more sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s work in me during the week as he produces his fruit: things like patience, kindness, gentleness, and self control. It means those around me will get my best, rather than my futile attempt to do it all with my own strength.

Resting in God frees me to say “no”:

These past 6 months have looked very different than I planned them out. When our middle daughter got sick I had to go through my list of commitments and make very intentional choices about what to cut. It was actually a very freeing exercise. I had a completely sympathetic excuse to say “no” to anything that wasn’t my absolute top priority. And the handful of things I did hold on to, were the things that are most dear to my heart. The things that most use my gifts and passions and that I feel the Lord has truly called me to in this season of life.

It is one of the treasures I gained in this difficult season – the gift of getting to let go of everything that isn’t a top priority and realizing what a freedom that is!

Obeying God’s command to rest requires me to take stock of the number of hours in my day. It requires that I weigh my commitment choices carefully. God never slumbers or sleeps, he never grows tired or weary, he has always been and will always be. But I do need sleep. I do run out of steam. And my days on earth are finite. I must choose things carefully. And doing that is an act of love toward God, because it is one way I acknowledge that He is God and I am not. It is me admitting that I can’t do all-the-things.

And you know what’s so cool?! Since we all have different gifts and passions – I know that if I say “no” to something, that means someone else gets to say “yes” to it, because that thing perfectly uses his/her gifts and passions! And then we all get to use our gifts to love God and each other better (1 Corinthians 12:4-7, 17-18)!  

Knowing, and resting in the truth, that God is God and I am not, allows me to say “no” without feeling guilty. When someone asks me to consider a new commitment, it gives me confidence to truly seek the Lord’s will – and be okay saying “no”. Because that activity, event, ministry, group, etc. will survive without me!

Resting in God equally frees me to say “yes”:

And what is wonderful is that if resting in God frees me to say no, it equally frees me to say “yes”. It frees me to say “yes” to the few things that most use my gifts and inspire my passions. It frees me to say “yes” not out of obligation or guilt, but out of the joy that comes with knowing how much I’ll be blessed by participating and serving in those few excellent things. It frees me to say “no” to really good things – so that I can say “yes” to one or two excellent things. And I mean “excellent” in the sense that they most fully use my gifts and passions.

I also get to have joy in saying “yes” because I know that it’s not up to me to be perfect in the task. God frequently calls us to things we are not able to do on our own. We will be tempted to strive, and over-work, and stress about doing the thing perfectly – but God knows we aren’t perfect and all he wants is for us to abide in Him. He will take care of the rest.

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

John 15:4-5

Abide first, and the fruit can’t help but pour forth. Does a branch strain and stress to produce berries? Does it have sleepless nights and yell at co-workers (or spouses or children)? Does it fill Sundays with tasks in order to get ahead of the week? Or does it simply stay attached and feed off the vine? The branch stays, it abides, and therefore it produces.

So I can say “yes” to a few things and give them my all – by first abiding in Jesus and being completely rooted and saturated in the Word of God. Then the fruit comes. That means I can obey God’s command to rest and set the work down. I can spend Sundays with my family in front of a fire. I can pull out my paints or my sketch pad. I can read that book. I can ignore the pinging sound of my phone. I can close my eyes to the mounds of dirty clothes. And I can simply rest in the fact that if I stop – the world won’t. God is God, and I am not. Hallelujah!

This whole resting thing is a command that the Lord is apparently trying to drive home to me right now. It has popped up in several different venues/ conversations/ readings over the past few weeks. As we near the end of our daughter’s treatments – I know that my personality will be to fill up all the new-found time. It will be so tempting for me to say “yes” to all-the-things! So, I am grateful that the Lord is now, ahead of time, preparing my heart to be sensitive to His leading. To find joy in the blessings that will come from the few excellent “yeses”. And to not feel guilty when I must look people in the eye and tell them “no” to their good invitations.

How are you doing with the command to rest? Do you have some good commitments that should really be someone else’s excellent commitments? Are you able to find time each week to put down even the necessary tasks of life to remember that the world won’t fall apart if you rest for a while? I’d love to hear from you!

May you find joy in resting this week!

Love, m