3 Things That Stop Us from Resting Well
A seatbelt unclicks and the car light turns on. I pinch my eyes tighter.
I listen as my dad opens his door and gets out of the car. From behind my eyelids, I can picture where we are on the driveway; our little white car parked out the front of our red brick house.
Dad opens my door, and I smell his cologne as he reaches in and unfastens my seatbelt. My head is rolled to one side against the car seat, and I try not to stiffen as he threads my arm out from behind the harness: it’s all part of the game.
I’m asleep, you see. Or, pretending to be. I’m so tired, and all I want is to be carried in Dad’s arms. If I can keep my eyes closed long enough and resist the giggles that bubble up in my stomach, he'll carry me all the way from the car to my bed.
Don’t so many of us feel like this, even now as adults?
We’re squeezing our eyes shut, hoping we can rest a little longer, willing someone to come along and carry us to bed when we’re too tired to keep going? (Or perhaps we’re still in bed and doing anything to stay there!).
Are you exhausted? If you’re anything like me, you’re teetering on that edge of burn-out, struggling to catch your breath and feeling like you’re never getting the rest you need. Our lives are fast-paced and over-scheduled, and many of us are running on empty. There’s always more to do, more to be, and it feels like we never get a break.
Rest is probably something we all crave more of, and yet we’re (read: I’m) not very good at finding it.
I seek rest in the wrong places—like hours spent escaping down YouTube rabbit holes or bingeing Netflix crime documentaries—and I never feel fully replenished. I keep telling myself, it’s just this season. I’ll go on a holiday sometime. I just have to keep pushing. Sound familiar?
It’s not a sustainable way to live.
But what are the things that hold us back from rest? Why does it sometimes feel so elusive? These are questions I’m asking myself, and I hope you’ll explore them with me.
We think we’re more important than we are.
I hate to admit it, but I know I let my pride get in the way of rest far too often. Do you?
In my pride, I think more highly of my own importance—especially when it comes to where I fit in God’s Kingdom—than I should. If I don’t serve in this way, I find myself thinking, then who will?
But the truth of the matter is that God doesn’t need me. He wants me to take part in what He’s doing in the world, absolutely — but He doesn’t place the task of accomplishing His will on my shoulders alone. I have but one small part to play in His grand plan, just as I am simply one part of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-27); a metaphor which humbles me when I wonder which tiny portion of the body I make up (Is it the little toe? A fingernail? An eyebrow?).
That’s not to say that I shouldn’t be obedient to what God’s asking me to do, or that it won’t be difficult. What it does mean is that He gives me strength enough to do what He’s asking me to do, and not to strive after what I think I should be doing. I picture the two sisters Mary and Martha, who hosted their friend Jesus in their home (see Luke 10:38-42). While Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to Him, Martha grew frustrated that she was busy making preparations on her own. Martha said to Jesus in exasperation, “Tell her to help me!” And Jesus’ response? He tells Martha that her priorities are all wrong, and that Mary has the right idea; sitting in His presence should come before all our other work and efforts.
We look for approval in the wrong places.
Another way that pride gets in the way of my rest is that I try and do things in my strength, not in God’s. I don’t seek or accept help from others because it’s humbling to admit that you can’t do things on your own, and I want people to think I’m strong and capable and don’t need them.
But we do need each other. We were never meant to strive alone. The Bible is littered with God’s call for us as His church to be united, and to “carry each other’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2). How many times have you caught yourself striving to do more, to serve more, only to end up feeling exhausted and burnt-out and resenting all the work you’ve carried alone?
Our striving can come from a place of pride, as we’ve already looked at, but it can also come from a true desire to serve and meet the needs we see around us. And although that’s a noble pursuit, it’s important to ask ourselves, Whose approval are we seeking? What has God asked us to do in this season?
For me, that sometimes looks like pulling back from serving when I realise I’m saying “yes” to things to please other people, and not looking to the One whose approval truly matters. Rather than being self-righteous and taking on the weight of things I haven’t been asked to carry out of some misguided sense of duty and servitude, I can stop and ask God, “Where do you want my focus right now?”
It takes humility to rest well; an acknowledgment that we need help, that we can’t do things alone, and that the world will keep spinning even when we stop what we’re doing and allow ourselves to rest.
We don’t practise rhythms of rest.
I believe that God, in His infinite wisdom, knew we’d be creatures of habit; people desiring structure in our lives. I believe that’s why He created day and night, the monthly moon cycles, and the yearly seasons — all to remind us of His timing and that there is order in creation.
Another thing God did was give us the Sabbath every week. Not just a dedicated ‘yearly getaway’ in our calendars, but an invitation to find rest in our ordinary, run-of-the-mill weeks. The gift of Sabbath is that it’s a weekly invitation to enter God’s rest by stopping our work and bringing our focus back to Him, our true provider, trusting that He meets our needs even when we cease our efforts. We don’t work so that we earn rest, we rest so that we can work from a place of overflow.
Think of God Himself resting on the seventh day once He created all things; did He need that rest in a physical sense? No. Psalm 121:4 tells us that “he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” So why did He choose to stop His works? I believe He was giving us an example of what it looks like to live our lives from a place of rest, acknowledging Him as our Creator and provider, the One who gives us each breath. After all, God doesn’t need us to accomplish His will. Paul puts it simply when he explains to the people of Athens in Acts 17:25; “[God] is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.”
Did you catch that? He is the One who gives us life, breath, and everything else. How can we not then trust Him to give us rest when we need it? But I can’t tell you the last time I took the Sabbath seriously and treated it as a day to recharge not just by sleeping in or doing something I enjoy, but by spending time in my Creator’s presence. (This isn’t to say that Christians must observe the Sabbath as a specific day; in fact, many believers differ on that. Yet there is wisdom in having regular, habitual times of rest in our lives). How do we do that, though? What does it look like to actually sit with God, to rest in Him?
I believe it’ll look different for each of us, but I’m personally learning the importance of silence as a way of spending time with God; a way of allowing my mind to reflect on who He is and what He’s done, and a way to open my heart to hear His voice.
It isn’t easy to rest in the bustle and noise of busyness, especially when there’s something weighing on your mind and stealing your peace. And it’s difficult to feel calm when we’re always on the go. That’s why we need silence; to look up from everything happening around us and recentre ourselves in the hope we have in Christ.
How much easier is it to rest when we take time to be reminded of where—and in Whom—our trust lies?
What now?
It’s easy for me to complain that I’m on the edge of burn-out and that I need more rest. What it isn’t easy to do is to admit that I alone can make the choice to lay aside my striving and allow myself to rest in the knowledge that God loves me just as I am, not for what I can do for His Kingdom.
After all, He is the One who “makes me lie down beside still waters” and “refreshes my soul” (Psalm 23:2,3). This year, I’m hoping to carry with me a firm commitment to rest, and to respect God’s invitation for us to “remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Exodus 20:8-11).
And, when the guilty thoughts crowd in that tell me I’m too busy or don’t deserve to rest, I’m going to be like King David and say: “In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8).
How does that sound, friends?
5. Silence Allows Us to ‘Be’ Instead of ‘Do’
“Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
There are plenty of times when silence can feel uncomfortable — awkward, even. And it’s rare to find someone you can be around in contented silence unless you know them really, really well.
That’s the beauty of silence in God’s presence. He knows you. Inside and out. And He doesn’t need you to strive or pretend or cover up or fill the space. He just wants you; your heart, your thoughts, all the bits and pieces that make up you, just as you are.
That might be hard for you to hear. “But shouldn’t I be serving God and praising Him?” you might ask. Yes. But we often get the order wrong. We think we need to do things for God so that we can earn the chance to be with Him. We believe the lie that we’re loved by God because of what we have to offer Him when it’s really the other way around; we have nothing to offer, and yet He loves us still.
If you’ve ever struggled with mental health, you’re probably familiar with some of those lies. Our minds (and the enemy) love to play tricks on us. We start to believe that we’re a burden to God, or that we can’t come to Him until we’re no longer struggling. But that’s exactly what we need to do with mental illness or any other struggle; run to Him, and rest in His presence. Cease our striving and choose to accept His love.
God wants us to enjoy His presence, not just endure it so we can cross “spend time with God” off our to-do list. Instead of looking inward to figure out what we can do for God (answer: very little!), being silent is a way of looking outwards to Him, and acknowledging that in Him we find everything we need. His love isn’t a love we can strive to earn, it’s one that is given freely to us — so why wouldn’t we want to spend time enjoying that?
This month, we’re focusing on the theme of rest and unpacking how to do that well. Later this month, we’ll be journeying through a 5-day reading plan on rest, which you can receive straight in your inbox by signing up to our mailing list. And, in the meantime, here are some other resources we’ve put together on this topic that you might like to check out, or share with a friend:
https://anxousfaith.org/episodes/ep43-rest-how-we-find-rest-in-god
https://www.anxiousfaith.org/blog/5-things-silence-does-for-our-mental-health
https://www.anxiousfaith.org/blog/is-self-care-biblical
https://www.anxiousfaith.org/blog/what-is-mindfulness-how-can-it-help-us
https://www.anxiousfaith.org/blog/its-a-new-year-but-im-exhausted
