Grow & Go - December 2024
Lord, Help Us Find Rest!
In everything we do, we can always enhance the process and make it better. My encouragement is to consider how we can improve the frequency with which we practice spiritual disciplines and the quality of time we spend in relationships with our loved ones. In my own life, when I strive to do the first one well, the second seems to fall into place.
There was a time in my life before being transformed by the gospel when much of my spare time was given to promote myself and a small business. During that time, most of the energy I had remaining to spend with loved ones seemed to fade. What they received from me was the leftovers. They did not get the refreshed, charged-up, and rested version. They received the tired, inattentive, and distracted version. Is this you? Do you need to consider carving out time for more rest, for your family, and for the glory of God?
We can always use the reminder from Jesus himself, fully man, fully God, that we need to find rest. His words tell us “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). Notice that Jesus’s words do not say when we need rest as we labor and toil in this lost and dying world to turn inward to ourselves. No, he says “Come to me”. I am tempted, we are tempted, if not careful, to rely on ourselves in the busy seasons of life. When we give others the shell or what’s remaining of our normal selves we are giving them our second best. One of the best ways that I find comfort is by resting in and practicing the spiritual disciplines during those seasons. Reading the Scriptures, spending time in prayer and personal worship, evangelism, serving, and finding quiet time can recharge us when we are overwhelmed by the everyday things of this life. When we come to the Lord and find rest in him, the time our families receive from us will likely be quality time.
Whether you are a husband, wife, child, grandma, or grandpa, we need the imperative words of Jesus to remind us where the source of our energy is found. Jon Bloom said in his article To All Who Need Jesus: How Jesus Welcomes the Weary in Desiring God that, “Jesus calls us to come to him, a command loaded with burden-lifting grace and mercy”. Remembering the grace and mercy that each of us has received, which we did not deserve, should be reflected in the way we spend time with the Lord and with others. I have found in my own life that when I do those things such as – praying, reading the Scriptures, and sharing my faith, I look more to the interest of others. When I spend time taking care of my own spiritual needs first, the quality of what others receive from me is much more God-glorifying.
Don Whitney’s book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life has been very helpful to me in my own sanctification and I encourage you to read it.
