Dr. BJ Condrey

It is amazing what rest does. By “rest,” I do not mean sleep. Both are important, but they are different. Rest is unplugging from work, letting down mentally and emotionally, not being “on call” (especially if you work remotely), being away from screens, and carving out significant chunks of time when you avoid checking emails (and for me, texts and social media).

When you rest for a complete day, or even an entire weekend, something wonderful happens: you enjoy work more when you return. When I have truly rested for a full Sunday (and sometimes for a full weekend) and stayed away from work, I return ready to go.

Fresh.

Ready to produce something meaningful and engage with others in a relational, helpful, and genuine manner.

Rest results in better work.

Rest allows our heart to let down, open up, be refilled, and breathe.

Rest allows our heart to grow and our mind to settle into solitude, silence, and stillness. It also helps us laugh and become a little more lighthearted.

God knows this because he designed us. He knows our limits, our rhythms, and our need to stop. This was, in part, surely the reason he instituted—and even commanded—the Sabbath for ancient Israel: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exod. 20:8). It is patterned after God resting from his work of creation in the beginning (see Genesis 1). God did not create human beings to work endlessly, always producing, always available, always “on.”

The ancient Jewish Sabbath reminds us that work is NOT life—it is only part of life.

The ancient Jewish Sabbath also reminds us that we are more than beings that contribute. Our “doing” is meant to flow out of our “being,” NOT vice versa.

Interestingly, the Sabbath command is the only one of the Ten Commandments not repeated in some form as a command for Christians in the New Testament. But we would be foolish to reject its wisdom. The rhythm of regularly stopping, resting, and making space for God is still deeply good for us. We need it.

We work and work and work, but then we rest. Good food. People. Worship. Slowness. Reflection. Prayer. Sunshine. And whatever else.

Be a person of rest.