We all need to rest. 
God needed to rest after He worked for six days to create the heavens and the earth as Genesis 2:2 tells us: “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.” Jesus pleaded with his disciples to rest after they had been doing their own ministry work for a period of time. Mark 6:31 tells us: “Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he(Jesus) said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’ “
I imagine all of us have gone non-stop, day in and day out, for a period of time until we could not function effectively. We’ve had to slow way down because our bodies begin to “talk” to us. We realized that we were not able to do the things we wanted or needed to do – mentally or physically. Perhaps that’s how God felt after He labored for six days non-stop. I suspect that’s the wisdom Jesus had when he knew that the disciples needed some down time after working really hard to tell others the Good News.
You and I also need to rest. God did not design us to keep going and going and going … like the Energizer Bunny. To be well and to be the best that we can be physically, emotionally/mentally and spiritually, we need to rest adequately. We need to get enough sleep on a regular basis. We need to make it a habit to slow down so that our batteries can be recharged. This is important in all three dimensions of our life – the physical, emotional/mental and spiritual. Our bodies need physical rest so that our systems can be rejuvenated. Our minds and emotions need rest so that we do not become overloaded. Our inner spirits need rest so that we are able to be the kind of person God wants us to be.
Like so much of life, how we rest is a personal thing. We each have our own personality and techniques to find rest and to recharge. The key is to incorporate our own habits of rest into our life so that we can be the man or woman that God put us on earth to be.
How are you practicing habits of rest in your life?
