I'm ready.
I have a Starbucks on my desk, chapter 8 of Own Your Life up on my iPad (complete with notes and highlighted text), and just completed my daily devotional. I'm ready to get back to our bible study and subsequently back to "owning my life". :)
I'm not sure how Sally does it, but she easily and amazingly hides a meaningful message in every single chapter of your book. Every. Single. Chapter. The message I overwhelmingly received from Chapter 8 was the importance of rest. She talks about how choosing to rest both physically and mentally is essential for staying alive spiritually. Read that a few more times to let it soak in.
Since having my daughter, I haven't had a chance to get reacquainted with my old friend "rest" and my other pal "relaxation". They have been elusive and at times I feel they are intentionally ignoring me. Believe me when I say I really, really miss their presence and am just not my sane self without them. So, needless to say, I subscribe to Sally's theory that rest is important in many different aspects.
She mentions that "...constant activity will slowly undermine our perspective on life and kill our souls. When we are preoccupied with our work, we almost always exclude the person right in our midst who is hoping for a relationship...". Message received. That "person" we are excluding can be anyone: a friend, spouse, family member, pet, neighbor, etc. But my interpretation as to who that "person" is in my life is God.
A doer by nature I'm constantly focused on productivity. How many chores can I get done during these 10 minutes of free time? How efficiently can I unload this dishwasher? If I just do a few more things today I won't have to do them tomorrow. These statements run through my mind on loop every single day. It seems that my former besties "rest" and "relaxation" have been replaced by new acquaintances "high-capacity" and "high-strung".
And while it's not necessarily a bad thing to want to be productive and hard-working, it is a bad thing if you're constantly choosing work over meaningful relationships. It is a bad thing if we keep saying "sorry, too busy" to the people who need us in favor of the things that could care less (i.e. housework and Facebook).
Sometimes I feel my propensity to want to "do" all the time is simply a defense mechanism against being still and listening to what God is trying to tell me. If I take time to rest and really open myself up to hearing God's instructions, what will I learn and most importantly, will it scare me? Will resting and relaxing and meditating require me to act on God's advice? Of course it will! It will require introspection and action on my part.
But since I pride myself on being so productive with work and home life, why can't that pride and effort be expanded into being productive in my spiritual life? The benefits of opening myself up to God's dialogue can only be experienced when I'm willing to do the work. He will not lead me down the wrong path if I'm allowing Him to do the leading. And to allow Him to lead requires me to give up the work, in essence, to rest.
I'm ready.
Psalm 62:5 “Yes, my soul, find rest in God: my hope comes from him.”
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