Happy Monday!
It’s the Independence Day holiday in the U.S. A holiday provides an opportunity to consider today’s word-of-the-week…
REST
Are you good at “rest”? I’m not.
I’ve never really thought about rest as an intentional part of life. Rest was what you did when there wasn’t anything else to do—or when you were too tired to do anything else. Rest was for lazy guys.
In our culture we live for the weekends, when we play harder than we work. We work-work-work all week, then pack as much “leisure activity” as possible into those precious days off. We slog into Monday so we can recover from the weekend.
My focus on training for RICH’S RIDE causes me to think about rest. The ride begins in about seventy days, so I’m in a hurry to get ready. But training doesn’t work like that. You can’t do it all at once.
Hard work—yes. But training has to include recovery time. Whether you like it or not, you have to rest.
I’m forcing myself to take a break from training one day each week. It’s hard, because I enjoy riding and I feel like I’m losing an opportunity to improve. But I know that in the bigger picture it’s the best plan.
It’s part of God’s original design. He never intended the 24/7/365 cram-more-into-every-hour lifestyle we’ve created. Even God took a break.
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Genesis 2:2
God’s plan is always long-term and big-picture. He’s never about hurrying to get it all done today. It’s more important to get it right than to get it fast. Perhaps we could learn from that.
My desire is to live life on purpose. That means working hard when I work, playing hard when I play, and resting deeply when I rest.
Isn’t that what Jesus did?
Honestly, I’m not all that good at any of those. But I can choose to get a bit better.
Are you good at intentionally resting? Any secrets you can share with us?
Have a great week.