Rest is a gift. I am sure so many of us read that statement and just laugh. Rest seems impossible and completely out of reach to us in our world that thrives on being busy. We even tend to look at rest as if it’s something bad or to be looked down upon.

The ladies at church are going through this amazing Bible Study by Priscilla Shirer right now and it has really opened my mind to so much. I am incredibly bad at resting. If I take a day off to rest or I take an hour to sit on the couch while Jase naps I feel incredibly guilty. I feel like taking any time to just sit means I am taking advantage of my role at home and I’m not managing my time well. But then there is something else I realize when I haven’t rested. I have a really hard time keeping my patience with Jase because I am so exhausted from not taking time to take care for myself. I get frustrated with my husband over things that don’t even matter, or little things that really shouldn’t bother me start to seem a much bigger deal in my mind than they really are.

There is a reason God calls us to remember to rest. He knows that without rest in our lives we will be stretched so thin that we can’t accomplish what He’s calling us to do to the best of our ability. He wants rest to be a gift in our life that we can enjoy so that it frees us up to enjoy everything else that He has placed in our lives. When we push ourselves until we are exhausted and running on empty we miss all the things that God has placed before us to enjoy. We aren’t trying to miss these things on purpose, but we get so caught up in everything before us that we have to do, that we miss out on everything in it’s path that we are meant to enjoy.

I have really been challenged to look at my life and find what it is that God is calling me to right now. What does He want my focus to be on? Where does He want me in this season of life? What do I need to clear out of my life so that I have the ability to bring more rest where it’s needed? I can go full speed ahead trying to do everything, but there is no way I can succeed in doing everything well. So instead, if I find what it is God says He wants for me and give my all to that, then I have the capability to do it very well. Then when I have removed all that God isn’t calling me to focus on right now, I have more time to rest and breathe in the gift that God has given us in that rest. I don’t want to look back on this season of life and wish I would have spent more time where my heart really longed to be instead of trying to do it all and never finding rest. I don’t want to look back and see that exhaustion ruled my life. I want to remember to breathe in the gift of rest that God has given to me.