Rest: An act of surrender
So two weeks ago, I got into a car accident that put my car in a place where I can’t drive it at all. This turned out to be one of the biggest blessings for me this weekend. I had planned my whole weekend out, from Saturday to Tuesday (MLK day weekend). Unfortunately, my backup ride became unavailable, which meant I was unable to go anywhere or do anything for two whole days.
Now if you know me, you know I tend to be on the go. There’s always something to do or somewhere to go. Friends have said when they think of me they think of wind or I’ve also heard “free bird” come to mind when they considered me. Between work, school, and everything else going on, my schedule was full. The car situation pulled me to a screeching halt. God used this involuntary pause to teach me about rest and remind me that work was something I did but was not my identity.
I asked God to help me make rest a priority in the midst of this season and I realized a few things throughout the weekend:
Having nowhere to go is the biggest blessing sometimes
I know some people reading this are like “YES, how could you ever see it any other way?”. Again, typically my life is full, not in a booked and busy way, just in a full way. This past summer God showed me that being busy isn’t necessarily always a bad thing. Sometimes, weekend after weekend is booked, event comes after event, but we have to remember that they all may be opportunities for you to spend time with the people you love, to celebrate others, or to do thing you really enjoy and think are important. Every season isn’t like this but some are! So oftentimes I find my life to look like this, and when it does I cherish the times I get to slow down and let the day unfold on its own accord.
This past weekend, I had some delays in my original scheduled programming due to my car, to where I found myself at home with absolutely nothing planned and no car to make plans in. And it was BLISS. I cannot even describe the rejuvenation I felt to not plan anything, not work on anything, nor do the things “I should do”. I just enjoyed the unexpected and unplanned gifts God gave me. I ended up having a sporadic frate (friend + date) and found some things I really needed, all topped off with a surprise house party bonfire filled with more friends.
The next day I stayed home all day, watched church from home, and cooked a recipe my youngest sister loves for lunch (avocado pesto cream pasta + roasted tomatoes). That evening, we joined our mom on her weekly Sunday drive through the Warner Robins shopping centers and I picked up a few items I needed and a few I just loved (bodysuit addiction loading…). We had dinner and discussed our roses and our thorns, (our version of highs and lows), and just enjoyed each other. Again, every part of these unplanned days was planned by God and gave me everything I didn’t know I needed which was nothing.
Rest does not have to look a certain way
Crazy I know, but I would feel guilty for watching vlogs or movies that didn’t have any spiritual or personal growth factor attached to them. I’d think certain things were too surface or lacked substance, so I should use my time doing things more productive (reading, watching, doing things that bettered me in some way).
“I should be reading the Bible, or listening to something deep, or doing something useful like working on my language skills, editing some writing, etc.”
But you know what?
Everything is not supposed to be work, and it is okay to relax and turn your brain off. Every moment of your life doesn't have to be defined by productivity. Everything does not have to be deep or hard. You are not less spiritually because you want to watch Julia Roberts tell her best friend Michael she loves him. That’s asceticism* and legalism and that’s not God.
Colossians 2:18 says, “Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud,—”
In chapter two of Colossians, Paul is warning the Colossians not to be swept back up into bondage Jesus set them free from! Legalism. It’s a great read. I think sometimes we can take life too seriously. Jesus is joy, Jesus laughs, Jesus is a good time—relax.
You know what God also showed me? God enjoys giving us things that bring us joy and make us happy! You know how I know? I’m not usually a Netflix watcher, but recently I just was considering how much I love 90s/early 2000s romance movies! How about, when I log in to Netflix, they have a whole section of MY TYPE of movies highlighted and circling highlights! Mind you, I don’t get on Netflix a lot anymore. God did that for me because he knew I had been desiring to watch these types of movies. I had access to all of them, tons of ones I had seen and even a few I hadn’t (hence the Julia Roberts and Michael reference iykyk). This gave me and my sisters so much joy as I nestled in to watch one when I needed to rest from working.
Rest is healthy & necessary
If you deprive yourself of rest, you deprive yourself of something you desperately need. For me it looks like, binging entertainment without knowing when to stop or when you’re actually fulfilled. You can burn yourself out and fry your senses to discern enough of anything. OR, when you do rest, you can’t enjoy it because all that you can think about how it is going to end soon. This all creates unhealthy relationships with work as well. If you deprive yourself of rest and joy, you will dread work and be less passionate or engaged. This can be especially dangerous, if you’re operating in legalism within your faith. Instead of really just taking time to do something you enjoy, you force yourself to read the Bible, or worship which can create an unhealthy view of God and his place in your life too. To be with God, to sit with God is a thing to rejoice in and delight in, don’t make life hard. Sometimes we do have to tell our flesh to submit, but in this case, sometimes we are just depriving ourself of something God did himself—REST.
so i’m prioritizing rest this season, and being intentional about making it a practice.
and you know what I’ve learned, when you rest it’s an act of surrender. It’s trusting that you don't have to provide for yourself by working 24/7, but that you trust God as our provider. That God is in control. And you know what? The work still gets done, not because of my effort but because of God’s love and hand enabling me to do what needs to be done. A big lesson I’ve been learning is that everything we are and have is because of God. It’s not because of our skills, or our intelligence, or our goodness—no it is because of God and his goodness. This shows up in our schoolwork, work work, ministry, any work we do, but it also shows up in our spiritual and personal growth.
We were not responsible for our own salvation, by God’s grace we were saved, he saved us, he called you to himself, he maintains your faith—It is Jesus who blessed me to know Him <3. It is Jesus who grows me in my faith. It is Jesus who keeps my faith going amidst all of my failures. His sweet love and goodness is not based on me and my actions but based on His steadfast and unchanging love for us. Our futures and value are not based on us, they are based on the good steadfast faithful character of God.
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*Asceticsm: severe self-discipline and avoidance of all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons.
