Words to Inspire Rest
It’s summertime, and I don’t know about you, but I’m craving some rest. Maybe it’s because we just finished with an amazing festival weekend that was equal parts life-changing and totally exhausting. Maybe it’s because I’m worn out from a year of moving + house renovations. Maybe it’s because my August is not shaping up to be quite as quiet as I had hoped. Whatever the reason, I keep hoping that a week of nothing will magically land on my calendar.
What about you? Are you craving some rest? Maybe summer vacation has been fun but not restful; maybe you’ve been using the extra daylight to get things done; or maybe the heat and humidity is messing with your sleep schedule?
In the spirit of embracing the need for rest, I want to share some quotes to meditate on.
Rest-Inspiring Quotes
The first is from the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. Daniel has already been through the lion’s den, and is now subject to a series of strange, confusing, and often upsetting visions. He doesn’t always understand them, and is often troubled by what he sees. And do you know how God concludes this whole situation? By telling Daniel to rest:
But you, go your way, and rest; you shall rise for your reward at the end of the days. (Daniel 12:13)
This isn’t the only scripture verse to talk about rest, of course, but I found it really compelling because it comes at the end of something mysteriously exhausting. God knows that Daniel needs rest, and so He commands it.
The prophet Elijah is treated similarly by God. When he reaches a crisis point, afraid that Queen Jezebel is going make good on her death threats, he flees to the wilderness, and tells God that he’s ready to die. God allows him to nap, and sends an angel with a snack.
“Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Get up and eat.’ He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, ‘Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.’ He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.” (1 Kings 19:5-9)
God knows that we’re human. He knows we need rest as we grapple with the difficulties of our lives - the regular bits and the spiritual aspects, too.
In the New Testament, Jesus continues that invitation to rest:
Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)
In our Western, secular, culture, we’re often afraid to rest, because we think that work is the most important thing. And it’s true that working is part of our design as humans, but it’s not the only part. John Paul II meditated on this in his encyclical, Laborem Exercens:
“Man ought to imitate God both in working and also in resting, since God himself wished to present his own creative activity under the form of work and rest. This activity by God in the world always continues, as the words of Christ attest: "My Father is working still ...": he works with creative power by sustaining in existence the world that he called into being from nothing, and he works with salvific power in the hearts of those whom from the beginning he has destined for "rest" in union with himself in his "Father's house". Therefore man's work too not only requires a rest every "seventh day", but also cannot consist in the mere exercise of human strength in external action; it must leave room for man to prepare himself, by becoming more and more what in the will of God he ought to be, for the "rest" that the Lord reserves for his servants and friends.” (Laborem Exercens, 25)
So as we move into August, how do you plan to rest? How might God be inviting you to rest?
(Sometimes we tend to think of rest merely in terms of sleep - but most of us rest in different ways, too. I’ll be writing more about that soon.)
In the meantime, I’d love to hear: are there specific ways that you rest, or things that you find particularly restful?