what it means to “rest”
July 15th, 2007
“Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10
I am working hard at not working.
I’ve discovered that it’s almost impossible for me not to work. I used to pride myself (though I wouldn’t have dared ascribed it to “pride” - I’m above pride, of course) on the fact that I knew how to rest. Whereas some of my friends and coworkers would bemoan that they didn’t know how to rest and renew, and were envious of my ability to, I rather enjoyed knowing the secret, and I felt like I was one of the few enjoying the benefits of God’s directive to us to take a Sabbath.
Of course, it had nothing to do with the fact that since I was born, my father had implemented a “Sabbath” in my life, so that I was trained to set aside one day a week for God and for myself. I tried giving it up for a time in college, under the guise of pursuing excellence academically, only to discover that when I went back to the practice of taking one day off completely from homework and work, I still maintained my 4.0. GPA. and actually enjoyed life more. I have never looked back.
I love Sabbath. I love that God has instructed his creation to take one day off a week for our good. I could not operate as effectively without it; I know, I’ve tried, and I choose to structure my life around a weekly Sabbath.
As a result of my love of taking Sabbaths, I thought I had it down quite nicely, this thing called “rest”; at a recent job interview, I was asked about my time management. I got quite few nods of approval from my now employers when I mentioned that I have already implemented a weekly Sabbath, resting from my busy workload and responsibilities.
It wasn’t until this weekend, however, that I realized that I am so structured and such a perfectionist and driven person that I can’t rest when it’s not scheduled into my schedule. An “unscheduled” rest period is not rest, it’s a struggle.
I found myself at the doctor’s this past Wednesday, with an order to take it easy and to not do anything. “Piece of cake” I thought to myself, welcoming the time off as a mini-vacation (of course, a vacation in which I felt miserable due to being physically sick, but nonetheless, a vacation from my two jobs). I thought it’d be easy to kick back and rest because I always look forward to my weekly Sabbaths. How naive I was.
It took me a full two days to unwind enough from my crazy schedule to actually be able to rest. And then I managed to rest for one full day. Of course, that day of rest included doing dishes, making lunch and dinner, etc. I prided myself on fighting the urge to write a few pieces — until I realized I somehow wrote and posted a piece yesterday. Whoops. That just “happened.” I take no responsibility. 
This morning, I woke up, for the first time in two weeks feeling stronger and actually seeing progress in this whole “healing” thing…and I immediately started cleaning and organizing my office, going through papers that have been waiting for me since my move two months ago. After five hours of nonstop work, and having listened to quite a few lectures, broadening my mind, making “good use” of my time, I realized what I was doing and that I’m completely crazy and I stopped. And promptly laid down on the couch and rested. (Okay, okay, so I picked up my roommate’s lap top and started writing this piece.)
It’s hard to break old habits.
Why is it so difficult to rest? To just stop? To let go and accomplish “nothing”? Sure, part of it is my personality - I have a driven nature and was also trained from an early age to be productive, but there’s something about just “being” and stopping and coming before God with nothing — no agenda, no long prayer list, no spiritual feats I wish to accomplish or passages of Scripture I wish to read or study — but simply resting in His goodness that is scary; scary because sometimes when we stop and rest, God communicates with us. And sometimes it’s easier to keep going, to keep ourselves busy than it is to listen to what He has to say.
I’ve learned there are two kinds of rest - sure, I may have the routine, weekly rest down which allows me to keep up my crazy schedule without burning out more often than I do, but there is the rest which requires nothing of us but simply coming before the Lord and laying down all of our worries, cares, and concerns at His feet and asking Him to minister to us, and it is this rest I am being asked to learn. I would wager that very few of us, Christian or otherwise, do this. It’s something that I value highly, both in my personal life and also in my job with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and yet the times I actually do it, unscheduled, are so rare. But sometimes God allows us to be slowed down in life — or clears out areas or activities or even relationships in our life — to get our attention, to ask us to pay attention to Him, to have open ears and an open heart to what He wants to teach us and show us.
Sometimes we just gotta stop.
And that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.
-Christen Patterson
July 21st, 2007 at 5:15 pm
[…] Sometimes I think I forget that. […]
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:18 pm
It doesn’t look like you’ve blogged in a while, but I happened across your writings today via a google search on Vanauken’s book, A Severe Mercy. Just wanted to say that I’m enjoying your blogs, hope this finds you well, Cheers! - Joe
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