The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler Rest Isn’t Easy
We’ve all felt the exhaustion, the overwhelming sense of vague failure or defeat, the frustration of feeling like our goals are impossible. Maybe some women out there can manage, but we aren’t and cannot be.
We need rest. We know we need rest. But we aren’t sure how.
The only kind of rest we can even think of is a “turn it all off” sort of rest. Go away. Escape. Shut down. Stop the madness.
And that’s pretty much impossible.
So, rest must simply be unachievable for us. Let’s just give up with a novel on the couch or with chocolate and a tv show: a second-best sort of escape.
Real rest, however, leaves us feeling ready to tackle our duties again. It leaves us refreshed and energized, just like a good sleep.
True, a good sleep is one kind of rest, but it’s not the only kind. All rest, however, is not an escape from our duties, but another part of our duty before God. He never tells us to be go-go-go, and in fact commands us not to be. We are not to be self-reliant and self-sufficient, but abide in His rest.
Taking time to be, away from our productive mode and our duties of service and stewardship, acknowledges that we can’t do it all and rests in the knowledge that we don’t have to, because Christ has supplied all we need: salvation, peace, and joy.
God is in control; we are not. Rest is based on our trust of that truth, the truth of His providential care.