Devotion – REST
This devotion is entirely
based on reading plan on the Bible App called: “SCARED REST – 5 DAY READING
PLAN” If you want to read it, please find it on the Bible app or find the book
about Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity by
Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith [LINK: http://ichoosemybestlife.com/sacred-rest/]
v
CONSUMING FIRE
There should be a “Get Out of Your
Responsibilities” card you can play on those days when life is just too
difficult, days when everything within you wants a moment simply to be still.
Peace comes in many forms. Sometimes we don’t have time for a long, drawn-out
me-time ritualistic activities. No mani-pedi. No hot tea and biscuits. No
caramel macchiato. No Dead Sea salt–infused bath. If I’m completely
honest, I’m to blame for this storm. I created it. I fueled it. I continually
recruit and pull others into it with me. I didn’t mean to do it. It is just a
reality of the life I created.
You see, I’m a doer. If I’m not doing something,
I’m wasting my time. At least that is what I thought, until a few years ago
when I found myself looking up from a compromising position into the face of my
smug husband asking, “What in the world are you doing on the floor?” Only one
answer came to mind— burning.
The image that came to mind was that of kindling
being consumed by fire. I was the kindling. I was burned out, and the life I
had created was consuming all I held valuable. But on this day, I was kindling
being consumed by an eternal fire. A fire with the power to destroy the
heaviness of busyness and ignite a hunger to draw nearer to the sacred
sanctuary of rest.
v GIVE IT A REST
In Isaiah 30: 12– 15, God is talking to the people about the
many promises He has told them to expect in their lives. Great promises they
have yet to see. The delays have made them skeptical of His faithfulness. The
hard times have made them question His love. He explains to them it is not by
His choice they have not seen the promises fulfilled; it is by their choices.
His reply as I interpreted it: “You would rather
trust in a system that has been driving you into the ground and rely on that
system more than you would like to rely on My way of doing things. That’s why you’re in the situation you’re
in now. the solution is to return
to resting, in order to be you saved, in
quietness and trust shall be your strength. But you are unwilling. You
are unwilling to do the simple. You resist doing what should come naturally. You would rather do that which is hard. You
would rather struggle than rest. You would rather work under a sense of
obligation than learn how to surrender to peace. You would rather fight for
every blessing rather than trust goodness is following you. You would rather
see it before you believe it. You are afraid of rest.”
It’s time to stop trying to fulfill every
promise by our blood, sweat, and tears. It’s time to go back to the beginning
when rest was required, when rest was sacred. When quietness was not a weakness and trust was not something to fear.
Where we saw them for what they truly are, needed ingredients in a life worth
living. Return to rest, quietness, and trust as a deer returns to a stream.
Return to the source of your strength, and in doing so, you will be saved.
v
SWEET
SLEEP
Have you ever tried to fix your chronically
tired self by purposely sleeping a few extra hours on the weekend, only to wake
up feeling like you’ve never rested at all? You had great intentions, but
missed one vital piece of the puzzle:
Sleep is not rest. As different parts of an intricate system, sleep and
rest are designed to work together to ensure every part of you has a way to
regenerate and be restored.
When I was in college, I could sleep like a
baby. The second my head hit the pillow I’d be out. In medical school, I
started having trouble falling asleep. At first, it took five to ten minutes
before I could go to sleep. Now it can take up to an hour when I lie down at
night.”
“Wow, an hour. As tired as you are at the end of
a shift, I would have thought you’d fall asleep quickly,” I mused.
“I know, right? But that’s the thing; good sleep is gentle. It comes in quietly,
descends upon you, and replenishes you. Bad sleep comes in like a flood,
overtakes you, and leaves you feeling spent. It’s the good I’m missing.”
Sleep is a biological necessity. Trying to omit
it will slow your productivity and eventually kill you. In an attempt to check
this life function off our to-do list every night, many of us have settled for
sleep at any cost and of any quality. Our problem isn’t simply a need for more
sleep. Our problem is that we are missing the good. Sleep is different from
rest, but good-quality sleep trickles
down from a life well rested. We may sleep in response to rest, but
resting doesn’t require us to be in a state of sleep. Sometimes as my friend
confessed, sleep is not restful at all. Then there are also those times when
even with a lack of sleep, we surprisingly feel rested and ready to tackle the
day. The deciding factor is the difference between good sleep and bad
sleep.
There has to be a bridge between good and bad
sleep, and that bridge is rest. Sleep is
solely a physical activity. Rest, however, penetrates into the spiritual.
Rest speaks peace into the daily storms your mind, body, and spirit encounter.
Rest is what makes sleep sweet.
v
A
SECOND CHANCE
The sacredness of rest remains even when we
refuse to acknowledge it. The need to break away, for the body to have periods
of peace, is rooted in our anatomy. We must have opportunities to heal. The
mind must have a reprieve from thinking. The body needs rest from movement.
Emotions need a release. The senses desire to be quieted. We need the social
grace to find rest in another. Our soul
yearns to soak in the created beauty around it, and our spirit calls for a
relationship with the holy.
Healing
occurs when we allow ourselves the time, space, and grace to be in the presence
of God in the middle of our busy lives.
Rest causes you to be still and seek to
know God. It calls for you to look deeper at yourself and your surroundings. It
forces you to stop.
We often view life as if looking through the
window of a speeding car. Rest, rather, implores you to slow down and fully
live. Rest is not simply pushing the pause button on your day. Rest is not
merely taking a break. Rest is about
replenishing, restoring, renewing, recovering, rebuilding, regenerating,
remolding, and repairing. Rest begins with the prefix re- because it
requires us to go back to a prior state. It is a second chance. It’s an
opportunity to put back in order anything that has shifted out of alignment with God’s best.
v REDEFINE REST
All rest is not created equal. Much of what we
consider rest fails to work because it is not restful. Shifting our activities
or changing the location of where we are active is no more restful than doing
those same activities at home. The most effective rest occurs when we are
purposefully reviving the parts of our life we regularly deplete.
Your body needs physical, mental, emotional, spiritual,
social, sensory, and creative rest. Omit any one of these, and you will feel
the consequences of the resulting rest deficit.
So what kind of tired are you?
example; (conclusion)
If you awake full of energy every morning and
are dragging by the afternoon, you may be missing adequate physical rest to
sustain your day. If you get out of bed tired in the morning and then become
energized as the day progresses, you may be experiencing creative restlessness.
And if you experience an overall lack of meaning and fulfillment, a spiritual
or emotional rest deficit may be to blame. Understanding which type of rest you
are deficient in is critical to correcting this imbalance.
If your
job is mentally draining but physically undemanding, physical rest will fail to
leave you feeling rested. Mental rest is what’s required to bring your mental
reservoir back to a healthy level. If you spend most of your day staring at a
bright computer screen or hearing constant noise, your body will need sensory
rest to feel renewed. If your circumstances cause you to struggle with faith
and the meaning of life, your soul will desire spiritual rest to return to a
place of peaceful contentment. For every depleting activity in your day, there
is a counter reviving activity to balance the scales.
Take a moment identify your rest deficits.
Complete the personal rest deficit assessment you’ll find here. It ’s important
you take an introspective look at your current state. Doing so will allow you
to see immediately which types of rest you need to focus on getting and which
types you already excel at obtaining. [LINK: http://www.RestQuiz.com]
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