between beginning and end…
This post is unashamedly all about the cute factor. God’s creatures were designed for rest, not just work.
You were made for rest too. Don’t fight it. Embrace it.
Image credits: morguefile.com
This is Day 21 of The Rhythm of Rest series (Write 31 Days challenge).
Dear Lord
I know I’m supposed to write something here about rest. Maybe even something profound. But the only profound I’m feeling right now, is profoundly out of ideas. What are you teaching me Lord about rest? What is it that you want me to see?
I’m possibly too tired to write anyway. (Got that right. I fell asleep for two hours after writing this sentence on my iPad!).
Do I feel guilty? No. Okay, maybe a little. But this is the message that is too strong to ignore, even if I’d like to. I need rest!
I’m sorry that I keep fighting it, even when I know how important rest is. Please teach me how to rest well.
Amen.
This Day 16 of The Rhythm of Rest series (Write 31Days challenge).
I’ve been wondering what to write about today, but what I really need is sleep.
Psalm 127:1-2
Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for he grants sleep to those he loves.
So sleep it is. May you also be blessed with deep refreshing sleep. And may you greet tomorrow feeling rested.
Image credits: morguefile.com
This is Day 12 of The Rhythm of Rest (write 31 Days challenge).
I’m reading a book at the moment by Alan Fadling called An unhurried life: following Jesus’ rhythms of life and work. I’d already chosen Rhythm of Rest as my topic and title for the Write 31 Days challenge well before I came across the book. So it feels like a gift, a confirmation.
I was familiar with the concept of a day starting with evening (“And there was evening and there was morning – the first day.” Genesis 1:5 ), but I hadn’t noticed that because Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day, the first day they really experienced was a day of rest.
God rested on the seventh day. So Adam and Eve started life with rest.
We tend to think of resting at the end of the week (our weekend) – if we think of resting at all.
But what if we’ve got it backwards? What if rest is supposed to come first? What if we were designed to function from a place of rest, rather than earning rest as a reward for our hard work, or as enforced recovery time when we’re sick or exhausted?
What if we saw rest as a gift? Something that propels us forward with life and energy?
As Fadling puts it:
We tend to see rest as the place we fall into after we’ve worn ourselves out with work. But what if our best work begins from a place of rest? What if rest takes first priority rather than last?
So what about it? If rest takes the first priority, what does that look like?
Well it might start to look a little like this…
When I got ready for work this morning I had five minutes before I neede to leave. Instead of rushing for an earlier bus or squeezing in some other activity, I set an egg timer in the kitchen (I still needed to catch the bus) and I sat in a chair in my lounge room. Solitude and silence with God for five minutes. Sometimes (okay, a lot of times) it can be hard to sit still and do “nothing.” But those five minutes felt like seconds, and when it was time to go I was still craving more. Those five minutes set the tone for my day.
And now it’s the end of the day … Or perhaps really the beginning of the next day. So I’m going to publish this post and make sleep my priority.
Sleep well and I’ll meet you back here tomorrow.
This is Day 2 of The Rhythm of Rest series (Write 31 Days challenge).
A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace and someone loving you is grace.
Frederick Beuchner
Image sourced here.
Flourish! 