“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.” (Genesis 2:1-3)

There is nothing like a little isolation to give you some time to ponder. A week of forced isolation from family and friends gave me pause to be thankful for all the gifts I take for granted daily.

One of the areas that I thought about while sitting in isolation was how often we confuse the idea of rest with the idea of recovery. Both are necessary, but they are not the same.  When you are lifting weights, you focus on both challenging your muscles and resting them. You might hear this when people say, “It’s my legs day” or “it’s my arms day.” With the right plan of both challenging and resting muscles, you can maximize your muscle growth and health.

I’m not sure that we approach our downtime in the same way. We sleep just enough to maximize our production. We stop or slow down only when we have overextended past the time our body has encouraged us to stop. But God wants us to rest. In fact, God has commanded us to rest, and not just to push beyond our abilities and then barely recover.

We all know the story of creation where God rests on the 7th day. I will never forget when a pastor pointed out to me that we want to work all 7 days, and in doing so, try to be better than God. I want to encourage you to think about a doing a time budget. A time budget helps you to not only think about how and where you spend your time; a time budget also gives you the freedom to have unscheduled rest!  

May God continue to lead you and walk with you in whatever season of life you find yourself, and may you find rest.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Tim