“Let my soul be at rest again, for the LORD has been good to me.” Psalm 116:7
Lord Jesus, you give what you command, and you command rest. As we own our various forms of restlessness, we come to you convicted, grateful, and expectant. Give each of us what we need the most.
Body rest is important, especially deep sleep. Mental rest de-clutters and slows down the rpms of our thinking activity, so we can be more present with people. Play rest gets us out of office and off the couch, into the art room, fishing streams, trails, pickleball courts, swimming holes, creation-beauty—wherever we can experience a full-body smile and regain a bit of childlikeness.
All work and no rest doesn’t mean we’re hard-working; it usually means we’re hard to live with—relationally shallow, driven rather than called, and stocking-piling future regrets.
Soul rest is less about recovery time, and more about intimacy time with you. Jesus, you love us, delight in us, and continue to pursue us for rich fellowship. Thank you. Even if we get 10 hours of sleep a night and have a 4-day work-week, we will remain restless until we rest in you—or rest in you again.
Jesus, this is rest-of-life-defining important. We’ll either spend time to be with you—pondering your truth, goodness, and beauty… or we’ll get spent by passing trivialities, the tyranny of the urgent, and the wrong definition of success.
Soul rest is for taking stock—doing the mercy-math, calculating all the grace-riches we have in you. To name a few—full forgiveness and constant belovedness, Judgment Day in our rear-view mirror and the Day of all-things-new barreling towards us. Thank you… and So Very Amen.