“You have permission to rest. You are not responsible for fixing everything that is broken. You do not have to try and make everyone happy. For now, take time for you. It’s time to replenish.” ~ Unknown
One of the things that has amazed me — and caused me great concern as well — over the past several years has been the amount of activities in which our young people have become involved. When you see a third grader take out a calendar organizer, well, I think that is going too far. Some of our children have their lives so structured that they have no time to rest or to be spontaneous. Between athletics, the arts, and other activities, they are scheduled from dawn to dusk.
This encourages a mindset in which we believe that we have to be busy at all times. If we have any free time on our hands, we become anxious and try to fill that time up with some kind of activity because, in our own minds, free time means that we are unproductive. If we are unproductive, we are failures. That extreme can easily be embraced by the person who is constantly told to be busy.
Jesus balanced being busy with rest. There were several times in the gospels when Jesus withdrew from everyone and went someplace to pray. Jesus also encouraged His disciples to do the same, telling them that there is a time for work and a time to pull away and rest in the Lord. He knew that it was in those times of rest that it was easier for His disciples to communicate with God.
We cannot communicate well with someone while we are actively doing something else. Our task will take our attention off of the person with whom we are communicating and our attempt at communication will also take our attention off of our task. Sometimes, that can lead to accidents. For example, we should never allow ourselves to be distracted while we work with power tools.
Being busy and having goals is not a bad thing. However, filling every moment of our day with task upon task and not allowing ourselves any down time is, in my opinion, a recipe for disaster.
FAITH ACTION: Find time today to rest in the Lord: unplug, turn off, and rest, giving God a chance to speak to you.