Rest is Not Just for the Weak!

My devotion this morning was on one of my favorite verses, "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures." Ps 32.2 I like any verse that requires me to lie down. I love to sleep! Okay, so this verse doesn't exactly mean I have permission to sleep till noon every morning err ... afternoon. It is referring to the requirement we take time to stop the busy in our lives and dwell on God. This devotion in particular pointed out that this is the longest commandment given to us out of the infamous ten. God spent 96 words on this command (see Exodus 20:8-11) while only using 5 for adultry and four for murder. The value of rest in God's eyes is evident. He knew we'd be tempted to keep going and going like the engergizer bunny (he knew about that commercial long before our feeble minds thought it up)and knew He had to nip that in the bud right off the bat.
I was discussing this devotion with a friend who has just started running. She mentioned that she was taking a rest day from running because she overdid it the day before by both running and taking a Zumba class. Her comment made me think how important it is for us to rest both in our spiritual lives and also in our running lives. If we fail to schedule rest days into our running schedule we will eventually tear our muscles down and find ourselves injured. We need to rest so that our mucles have a chance to rebuild and something I've always found amazing is how our muscles will rebuild themselves stronger. As we exercise we create tears in the muscles and as those tears heal they actually strengthen! We come out stronger for having rested. Now, that doesn't mean we can simply rest every day and gain strength. It's not that easy. The strengthening can only come after we've done some work first. No excuses for being lazy! But if we do the work first and make sure to rest after we can be assured we will grow stronger.
Once again, our running lives are a great analogy for our spiritual lives. God wants us to work. He has a job for each and every one of us and He expects us to do our best. He gives us the tools and skills we need and if we follow His directions we will succeed but there is often one direction we frequently miss, skim over, skip and ignore. What is it? Yep, rest. We don't like to rest. Why? Maybe we think it will make us weak? Perhaps we feel it will put us behind the rest of the pack? Maybe we fear getting behind schedule but that is when we need to ask ourselves ... who designed the schedule?
When I train for a half or full marathon I use a schedule designed by an expert. The schedule will give me a day by day guide for what I am supposed to do in order to be ready for race day. Monday I will run, Tuesday I will cross-train, Wednesday I will run, Thursday I will ... gasp ... can it be? Rest. Wow, is Thursday ever hard. I'm usually on a roll and I don't want to rest. On Friday I am back at it cross-training. Saturday I have my longest run of the week. Sunday is, once again, a rest day and this time I am relieved for the time off my feet. The experts know the value of rest after a huge effort.
So too, the Expert who guides my life knows the value of rest. He knows I need rest before a big endeavor to build up strength(Thursday's rest) and also the power of rest to restore my soul after the endeavor is finished (Sunday's rest). As God prepares us for the things He has in store for us He requires that we rest. He knows how vitally important it is that we take time to sit quietly with Him. There are times when that restoration is in preperation of something big awaiting us. We may not know the exact date we will find ourselves racing but God does and if we trust His plan we will be prepared. We may not want to rest when the scheduled time pops up on our calendar. "But God," we'll say, "I'm on a roll here. My list is never ending. If I stop I won't finish in a timely manner." Once again, I ask, whose time are we operating on? Don't we think the Master List Maker has it under control? If He moves rest up on our list it is adviseable to take that into consideration and obey. I for one don't want to show up on race day fatigued, barely able to crawl across the finish line or worse yet, receive a DNF (Did Not Finish). And heaven forbid I wind up with a DNS (Did Not Start). These are all possible outcomes if I fail to rest.
I will take the time to read the plan in front of me (the Bible, anyone?) because I plan on showing up to the race prepared and strong, even if that means taking a day off once a week (or even two)to refresh my soul.