The rhythms of rest are a gift, said no toddler ever. Yet here I was again trying to convince my two youngest toddlers that their bodies needed naps. If they would only pause moving, cease doing, and rest, then the restoration work would begin. Their little bodies could work on growing and rejuvenating cells. Their hearts and minds would be restored by the pause and our evening would be so much more pleasant with fewer tantrums, but alas, here I am fighting them on nap time once again. Why do they fight this so much when I know how good it would be for them? Why can’t they just trust that I know what is best for them?
“There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the sun”
Ecclesiastes 3:1
Nature is incredible in the ways it illustrates rest for us when I look to the trees and plants. During the spring and summer, the trees are so active in producing beauty and function. Their upwards extended branches look like the capillaries in human lungs and their green leaves are inhaling deep and exhaling the fresh oxygen and beauty to move us and motivate us to move our bodies in those wonderful seasons. But during the fall, the leaves begin to change colors and shed as a reminder to slow down. Winter is arriving and just as they begin to face the cold grey skies bare and exposed, we start to feel the chill in the air. The early darkness should remind us to pause, slow down, rest. Now is the time for the body to slow, to inhale, to keep warmth.
The enemy knows this and arguably his greatest Christmas strategy to keep you drained, exhausted and distant from your creator is to convince you to speed up. He uses advertising to breed discontentment in your home. Maybe if I just had one more garland or a bigger tree, or a few more outdoor lights then I could have the Christmas I have always wanted. If I just buy the perfect toy for my children they will magically transform and have the character attributes of gratitude, intelligence and never whine again. This must be it, the magical toy that will occupy them for the next year so that they won’t bother me or complain. Slowly, strategically, he whispers “Go, go, don’t slow down, don’t you want it all to be perfect? Don’t you want that person to love you? Spend, spend, spend more.”
God often uses these tiny little bodies he entrusted to my care to teach me big character lessons about himself. This week he is teaching me the importance of rest. I was really discouraged entering this Christmas season and I couldn’t seem to figure out why. The mere thought of putting up decorations, dragging the tree out of the dusty cold attic and facing crowds to shop for gifts that my kids may not appreciate or destroy in a few months made me want to curl up under a blanket and breathe “Bah Humbug.” I think in the years where I have drifted away from a desire to do Christmas, what I have truly lost is the rhythm of rest I need to reflect and understand. What I really needed was the pause. To cease. To stop being and accept what Christmas really is, “God with us.” That is the core of my faith, that God came to us. In a religious world where striving never ceased, he came in the night as a baby, and said I am coming to you
I have often used the Sabbath as an optional day of rest. Skirting around it as a suggestion vs. command like the others. Stealing and cheating appears so much more offensive to others over me not taking a day off. However, God is teaching me in the neccesary pause over the last few months that this command is a heart issue. Do you believe you are the mini-God of your own world and that if you cease, all things will fall apart? The command is really a faith issue. Do you trust if you let go of your never-ending to-do list and striving for one day a week that God is in control?
