Resting seems counterintuitive to us but is one way our bodies and minds recharge.
Many of us live for the weekend, but then fill the weekend up with all the things we wanted to do during the week but couldn’t because we were busy with work! Instead of being a time of rest, our weekends become a time of busyness, different from the busyness of work, but busy still the same.
If we find ourselves waking up groggy, with headaches or other body aches, or with an unclear mind, it’s likely that our bodies are telling us we need more rest.
So why are we reluctant to rest?
For some of us, resting feels unproductive. I fall into this category. If I take an hour to lay on the couch and daydream, draw, or read a novel, I tend to feel like I wasted that time, especially if I have assignments or other things that need to be done.
For others of us, resting comes at the end of the day, after a long day of accomplishing tasks, dealing with problems, and being around people. It’s what we do when we kick off our shoes and sit on our couches, often with a pre-packaged or fast-food meal of some kind. Here, resting is done by default, not intentionally.
For Christians, today is Good Friday, the day in which we remember the death of Jesus Christ. It is a day where Christ’s dead body was taken down and entombed, and he laid fallow until Sunday.
Many Christians remember this day in a variety of ways. Some spend the day with family, others attend a church service, and still others use the day to give extra attention to their spiritual lives.
All of these things represent ways of resting. Resting is nothing more than taking yourself out of your daily routines and reminding yourself that you are not the centre of the universe. Resting is taking time out of your day to check in with yourself, to ask yourself how you are doing, and to take a mental or physical break from work to ground yourself.
In a world that values busyness and where we feel the need to be “always available,” it is important that we build times of rest into our lives.
These times can be as simple as taking fifteen minutes of silence on a lunch break, walking for thirty minutes before or after work, or leaving work at work when you go home for the night so you can give attention to your family at home.
How well do you rest in your life right now? Where do you need to be more intentional about rest? What resting practices will you adopt?
How do you practice rest as a spiritual habit?