I don’t know about you, but I have been tired lately.  I know that this happens fairly regularly, but I am noticing it more and expressing it out loud. It was really apparent this morning when I woke up tired, seemingly having no rest.  As humans we all get tired.  Jesus himself grew weary and tired.  But when we have not  rested we are not able to give our attention to the things or people that they deserve.  We become more on edge and even short with them.  It becomes more difficult for us to notice God’s work in our lives and decreases the ability to notice the joy and peace that God gives.

     Face it, our lives are fast paced, activity filled, and getting more so every day.  Our schedules are packed with work, projects, church, errands, meetings, with not much room for rest.  Thomas Merton writes,

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence…. (and that is) activism and overwork.  The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.  To allow oneself to be carried away to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence.  The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace.  It destroys our own inner capacity for peace.  It destroys the fruitfulness or our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.

     Our way of living at this driven pace keeps us from living in the health and well being, both physically and spiritually that God intends for us.  God cares so much for us that he not only encourages it, models it in Jesus, but made it a law for the children of Israel to follow.  God knows us better than ourselves.  He knows our very tendencies toward our totally occupied days and our need to slow down.  This rest is not just for us to relax or sleep.  Though that is definitely a part of it, it is for us to take stock of ourselves and to spend time with our creator. It is to stop what we normally do and to gain perspective.

     In the scriptures, this period of rest is called Sabbath.  God made it so that every one would stop for one day a week to rest, to fellowship with others, and to fellowship with him.  Living this side of grace and with our given propensity to do, most of us don’t take the day.  In fact, many times the very day that we should be stopping, is even more activity filled. 

    My desire is to follow this God designed sabbath rest, but it does not always happen.  The need for it however, contiues.  I have found that taking smaller sabbath rests throughout the day and week really help me in getting what I need. Kind of like power naps, if you will.  God seems to use these mini sabbaths to allow me not only some physical rest but to be able to spend time with him and to gain the perspective that I need to live in this world.  This practice does help me, but does not cancel out the need to take the whole day.

     How is it that you find rest?  What is your Sabbath practice?

Picture: Resting, by Pusqums