The Revolution of RestSample

REST IS HOLY

How many times have we wished there were more than 24 hours in a day? How many times have we disregarded our day off because we simply had too much to do?

In 21st-century hustle culture, the narrative surrounding rest is that it is bad, it is a waste of time, and it is detrimental to our success. Many of us have bought into a lie that says we must always be productive, always be creating, and that we must value efficiency above all else

Women, especially, have been subject to this lie. In a world that refuses us time and space, we have come to perceive rest as evil, fearing that if we don’t work, the time and space we have so painstakingly worked for will be taken from us by somebody else. And this work has become our identity. Our ability to forego rest is the scale we use to measure our worth and our morality. It has become our pride. We boast in our busyness instead of our Lord and it has left us emptier than he ever intended us to be.

The truth is that Rest is Holy. In Genesis 1, God spends six days creating the universe. On the seventh day, he rests. But he doesn’t just rest. Genesis 2:3 says that God blessed his day of rest and made it holy. Later in the Old Testament, God calls this day of rest, “Sabbath” and instructs the Jewish people to keep it holy. God considered the Sabbath so important that it appeared in the Ten Commandments, the very foundation of Jewish Law.

God instructs us to rest because he rested. We were made in God’s image and the practice of rest is us learning to bear the image of God. Learning to rest in God’s holiness untangles our worth, thread by thread, from the confusing web of hustle culture and instead ties us to God and his everlasting grace and love. Rest transforms us into holy beings as we turn our worship away from our work and back to our worthy God.

To embrace rest as holy is to surrender our lives to God. When we reverence our time of rest—when we actually make the time to cease work—it signals a letting go, a giving back to God what was always his.

REFLECTION:

1. How do you idolize busyness in your own life?
2. How familiar are you with the concept of sabbath?
3. How can you start to bring reverence and intention to your days of rest?

GUIDED PRAYER:

"Rest is Holy" was written by Amber Tremblett.