Resting in Christ

A picture of the beach in Florida by Jim Ivey

Tonight my body hurts all over from the end of a five day work stretch, which involved heavy lifting and moving, painting a room, and many of the other weekly task I perform.  Needless to say, I am really looking forward to my day off tomorrow.  I hope that I can be productive by cleaning up the house, finishing up gifts for Christmas, and especially taking a little bit of much needed relaxation and healing in Christ.  I know it seems that hard work develops the muscles, stamina, and character that makes us stronger but actually without rest none of these can happen.

Both the medical world and the Bible support this idea.  The medical world has done experiments and discovered that we actually grow muscle when we are resting not when we are actually working out.  The work out itself actually creates micro tears in our muscles and while we are resting is when they are repaired and made stronger.  In the beginning of the Bible we see God creating the world and after he finished creation he decided to rest on the seventh day.  If the God of the universe who needs no rest decided to rest on the seventh day, wouldn't you think it would be wise for us to do the same?

In the world we live in many of us take no time to rest.  We continue to go on and on slowly working ourselves into a shambles.  Many of us are over stressed, over worked, over tired, and under appreciated.  This is especially true for those in the ministry.  It is incredible to me that people in the church believe their ministers should respond to their every beck and call.  A minister is just like any other person and needs time with their family, time to relax, and time to develop their relationship with Jesus.

We all need to take more time for our God, ourselves, and our families.  I know many of you could give me a million reasons why you couldn't possibly take a day of rest and I'm sure they would all seem like perfectly sensible reasons.  My question to you is: do you really want to get to the end of your life when you finally realize how precious your time and life were and regret all the times you chose not to take care of yourself and your family?  If we are not taking care of ourselves mentally, physically, and spiritually, how can we expect to fully live to our full potential?  Living to our full potential in Christ requires each of us to take the time to heal and recover from the demands of this world.

I hope you will take some time to heal this week.  Sit down and breathe without fully guilty because as you do you are honoring God design for you.  Spend some time in the never ending, overflowing, completely refreshing living water of Christ.  Like my blog Painting My Heart a Fresh talked about you need to allow the Lord to heal and repair the damage you have done to yourself.  Let him smooth away the stresses, demands, and disappointments of this world.  In Christ you will alway have what you need to live this life to the fullest in Him.  All you have to do is take the time to allow Jesus to renew you and refill you with all you need for those six other days of the week.

Blessings,

Greg