Have you ever heard a pastor, or ministry leader say the devil doesn’t take a day off so neither should we? That’s a preposterous statement and one that I find both manipulative and misguided. I saw a meme a while back that picture two men talking. The first one says, “Pastor Brown told me he never takes a day off because satan never takes a day off.”  The second man responds, “Seems to me, Pastor Brown needs to pick a better role model.” Does this describe you when it comes to rest? Perhaps you need a new role model. Jesus took time to rest. God rested!

How did we move so far away from the Scriptures when it comes to rest? We need rest. We are designed to take rest. We are commanded to rest. Rest is a gift. So why are we so restless? Why do we reject and resist rest as part of our lifestyle? I have lots of thoughts on this and will share them in future posts. Here’s one though. In our western culture we think non-stop work is a virtue. You are busy therefore you must be important. Why don’t we stop? One answer, we don’t think we need rest. Work and rest are not in opposition to one another. Work and rest are partners.

Sabbath is a time of rest, holy to the Lord, it is time given to God, to receive refreshment from Him. The Sabbath is mentioned 172 times in the Scriptures. The word rest is used 257 times! I think it’s safe to say the matter of rest is an important topic to God. One thing that stuck out to me when studying about rest and The Sabbath was the number of times God said that Israel had violated and profaned The Sabbath. Those are pretty strong words!

Millionaires, well known corporate executives, and entrepreneurs who boast, “I only sleep 4 hours a night”, or spout out nonsense like, sleep is for losers, the lazy or weak, are not the role models you want to emulate, unless money is your god, importance and fame is your aim. If building your own little kingdom at the expense of life, health, and relationships, is your goal, then go for it! By the way, King Solomon the wealthiest dude ever, in the book of Ecclesiastics basically says, “I tried all that and look where it got me?”  Can we get a sanity check please?

For now, I’d like to simply identify four areas of rest you’ll need if you want to live a balanced life. This isn’t an exhaustive list but for now I’ll mention four: 1) physical rest 2) mental rest, 3) emotional rest and 4) spiritual rest.  Over the past four years I have researched and studied these extensively. Stay tuned!

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