Rest

Rest

Sabbath

Naps

Vacation

Just writing those words makes me happy. I am often tired, overbooked, overwhelmed, and cannot remember the last time I slept through the night uninterrupted. You would think that it might be easy for me to remember to rest, but alas, even I struggle sometimes. But when I take a moment to just breathe and slow down, I feel the overwhelm diminish. 

I remember as a young mom how tired I felt all the time. I had my first two children 16 months apart. This meant I never rested. At night my toddler was pretty good with sleep, but my newborn had a severe case of FOMO (fear of missing out) and she came alive after a middle-of-the-night feeding. She wanted to play, talk, crawl all over me, you get the picture. During the day when one slept the other ate, and vice versa throughout the whole day. I would catch sleep in spurts whenever I could, but I was mostly exhausted for two to three years. But in order to survive I had to make it work, grabbing rest whenever it was possible. I also remember how resistant my children were to naps, which at the time felt doubly cruel, because if they did not rest, they would be crabby and difficult the rest of the day, but it also meant I couldn’t rest, making me crabby and difficult too. I think you get it. I am pretty sure we all have seasons of life like that. Maybe not always with baby care, but school, careers, and other obligations. 

In my stage of life now, I can still be tired, struggle to get enough rest, but for altogether different reasons. My three kids are all young adults now, they sleep through the night (thank goodness) but it doesn’t mean I always do. I have an anxious nature which means I can still lose sleep worrying about them. Not only that but I now have a demanding career. Don’t get me wrong, it is my dream. No really, it is literally my dream job, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard, and that it doesn’t tire me out. It does.

Lest I get too personal here, I am also in a new stage of life physically. As I age gracefully, if I do say so myself, (me and a box of hair color), I wake up several times a night for a variety of reasons. It seems I never appreciated enough my pre-children, young adult, mostly trouble-free nights of sleep. I fear they is gone forever. I am not sure that I should ever expect an uninterrupted 8 hours of sleep. RIP

So where does that leave me? I suspect it leaves me in a similar place as many of you. Even if we are tired for different reasons, and we are navigating very different stages of life, I know I am not alone in feeling tired. And whether or not I admit it, I am still resisting naps, literal and figurative naps, as much as my kids did.

Why we fight rest is, I believe, a pride issue. Well pride and faith actually. We live in a world that pushes productivity and competition. Bigger, stronger, faster, busier, bolder. If we were to rest, we might get left behind. Others might get ahead. We do not want that! And this secular mentality is all over the Western world, and it is also in our churches. Mega-churches, full calenders, more and bigger programs, and parking lots that resemble Disney World’s. I am not bashing any size church specifically, I am merely saying that we can get God’s priorities wrong sometimes. We push and push and push, because we think we are doing so much for God, how could we stop to rest, or scale back. We ask, “what would happen to the church if I slowed down?, I must keep going…” Except no, we should not allow the world to dictate our pace. Only God should do that.

Let’s see what God says about it. From the very beginning, literally the first chapters of the Bible, God rested. Does God have limits of energy? I do not think so, YET, God rested. Rested as a discipline, rested as a principle, rested as a model. When Christ was alive on earth, he not only practiced the Sabbath, He took naps. That might be my favorite attribute of Jesus, He napped. Jesus delegated work to His disciples and slowed His own pace of work to pray. Jesus prioritized time with the Father over work with earthly measurable impact. So when we say I want to be more like Christ, I want to obey Christ, I want to follow Christ…should it not include the pace and rhythms of Christ? Obviously, I believe it does.

How can you go about following the rhythms of Christ? I’ve adopted a few practices over the years that have helped me, but it’s a constant awareness and chosen intentionality that I take very seriously. What can rest look like for you? Do you need to say “no” to something to slow your pace? Maybe it’s a weekly Sabbath that you struggle to practice. Remember as a person of faith we have an assurance that the world will keep spinning, and God will remain in control, if we stop our work one day each week. Whether out of pride or a lack of faith, your overworking and chronic tiredness is not God honoring, He never asks us to exhaust ourselves. And if you are in a particularly trying season of life, that is exhausting, what might God be asking you to give up, for now, in order to honor Him with your life, and show up for your current obligations with the energy necessary for them.

Remember, taking naps can be sacred and holy work!

– Karen