5 Ways to Embrace Rest

5 Ways to Embrace Rest Remember when you were a kid, and your parents made you take naps? You’d whine and complain because there are so many other fun things to do! Why would you want to sleep?! Those times seem so simple in comparison to life as an adult. Now we avoid (or are prevented from) resting for very different reasons. Life gets crazy with things like working, studying, making sure your kid gets to that birthday party, shopping for groceries, paying bills; the list goes on and on. When our to-do list gets filled up, rest feels impossible or like a bad use of our time. But even though our duties are important, taking time to rest is never a waste. God designed us to need rest. In fact, it’s all throughout the biblical story: God rested after creating the earth (Genesis 2:2); Jesus fell asleep on the boat during a storm (Matthew 8:24); Elijah slept and ate to prepare for the journey ahead (1 Kings 19:5-9). These are just a few examples of rest in the Bible, and two of them are God himself! And if the all-powerful Creator of the universe needs rest, we certainly do too. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to do the work that God has for us. Just think about how you feel when you let all of your responsibilities take precedence over your rest. We feel so exhausted, we can’t even put effort into the things we need to do. In short, we’re burnt out. When we look at Elijah, we see that before he rested, he felt like this. He even begs God to kill him instead of making him keep going (1 Kings 19:4). He’d done so much, and had so far to go, it didn’t seem possible for him to continue on. But God wasn’t done with him yet. God saw that, in order to fulfill what he had for him, Elijah needed rest. So God let Elijah sleep and gave him food to replenish his body. Only after that was Elijah prepared to embark on his journey. God wants us to lean on him. Jesus even says: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). We can’t do it all on our own strength, and that’s the point. Only he can replenish our souls, remind us of what he’s done and can do, and get us ready for our next adventure. So what might rest look like on a daily basis? We’re glad you asked. We’ve included some ideas to help you get started.