the importance of rest.

Who knew that my surgery would teach me something. But God sure knew. In the past two weeks, since my surgery, He has shown me the importance of rest—not only physical rest but spiritual rest.

He has shown me that rest is a necessity in life. In Genesis 2:2, it says “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.” God did not NEED to rest, but He chose to because He knew the importance of it. He showed us the example of rest.

If you’re anything like me, you’re always go go go. It doesn’t matter what you have going on, you keep saying yes to all the activities going on. You don’t stop. Rest isn’t in your vocabulary. Even if you’re tired and worn out, you just keep going. You ignore rest.

God really convicted me about that last week. Two weeks ago, I had surgery on my knee. For a few days, I had to stay home and do nothing. I watched TV, did some work stuff from home, but I was becoming restless. By the time the weekend came along, I had events planned for Friday through Saturday night.

I wore myself out. I was up to the wee hours of the morning with muscle spasms and being sick to my stomach. I couldn’t get off the couch Sunday because of the way I was feeling. Monday morning came around and, I went back to work, but I was supposed to work an event on Monday night. This event was a once in a lifetime opportunity, but I had to make the decision—work the event and continue to wear myself out OR go home and rest.

God told me to rest. So I did.

That is when He reminded me of the importance of rest. That week I didn’t rest like I needed and, I crashed and burned with my muscle spasms.

Doesn’t that resemble life?!

We NEED to rest in His Word and to rest in His presence. We need to take time out of our busy schedules to give time to Him. Because, really, the schedules He has given to us and the life He has given to us is His, not ours. If we don’t take time to spend with Him, time to dive into His Word, time to pray to Him, we ARE going to crash and burn. Just like I crashed and burned, physically, we can crash and burn spiritually. When times get hard, when we are constantly on the go, when we can’t control our situations, we will fall because we are so spiritually dry. And, then, we will be even more susceptible to the attacks of the enemy.

He reminded me of Isaiah 40:28-31—“The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

As we wait on Him. As we are still in His presence. That’s when we receive our strength from Him. We WILL “grow tired and weary” and we WILL “stumble and fall” but by placing our rest in Him, we WILL have our strength renewed. It’s strength to move forward.

Not only has he reminded me about spiritual rest, but He has reminded me about the need for physical rest too. We can’t say yes to everything, and we can’t please everyone. If we do, we will run ourselves ragged. As hard as it is for me to say ‘no’, I am starting to see the importance of saying ‘no’ to some things. If we are constantly going and never stopping, when will we spend time with God? And when we find the time, we’ll be so exhausted that we might not get the full potential of our quiet time with Him. And if we are so exhausted, we won’t be at our full potential of living each day for God.

Matthew 11: 28 says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” He invites you and me to rest. He says come to Him, and He will give you rest. So why don’t we come to Him and rest?

So I ask you, are you resting? Are you taking time out to spend with Him? Are you giving your body rest? If not, I challenge you to reflect on how you can change that because time with Him is worth far more than any event you have planned and far more than your busy calendar.

Rest in Him.