The Importance of Rest

God doesn't want people to feel overwhelmed and burdened, but in our lives today society puts such an emphasis on being busy.  Rest is a way of life, and we need to create space in our schedule for it.  Our lives are too fast-paced.

Our lives have put so much emphasis on being busy, that we have created a world of multi-tasking.  We created something that wasn't there before.  If you were doing something years ago, chances are you didn't have a cellphone on you every second of the day.  If you didn't pick up the landline you were busy.  Now if you don't answer calls, people think its because you're ignoring them, because they expect you to always have a phone with you.  We think were good at multi-tasking, but we're not.  Our brain is suppose to only be able to handle one thought at a time.  This is why we feel anxious.  Years of multi-tasking is even known to over years lower your IQ in the same way marijuana does.

Because of our fast-paced lives, and access to technology we are given around 2,000 persuasion messages per day.  Many of these conflict with other messages and cause our brains to feel overwhelmed.  We don't know what to believe or what to think, or how to act.  Throughout our lifetimes living in this generation we're going to have to learn how to use 20,000 things on average.

Even in "The Bible" people thought resting would be a waste of time.  They wanted to accomplish all these things for God that they never really saw the importance of rest.  But "The Bible" says we need to make a habit of stopping and just ceasing from our responsibilities for a second because rest is what makes us stronger.  God will do our work for us, we don't need to do it on our own.  Through your job you work to give, as God has given you that job in the 1st place, so we should not work to gain.  God has given us "The Bible" as a gift of rest, so we may take a moment and reflect on it, ceasing from our work.  Psalm 23 tells us what living a restful life looks like.

God looks at our lives and thinks about what he can accomplish in our lifetimes,  We like to think hes going to accomplish something soon, and if nothing happens we don't feel satisfied due to our fast-paced lives.

Another reason we feel so overwhelmed is we are never content with what we have, we always feel like we need something more.  But God says: "I shall not want"  and that all that we need to be content is clothes and food.  If we have those things and still want more we desire to be rich.  Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation.  This temptation allows us to have senseless thoughts and wants that make us feel discontent.  We want that new version of a phone, or a certain brand of toothpaste.  Its senseless because there's not much difference in the 1st place.  They both have the ability to do the same thing.  God wants us to enjoy life, and if we don't like his gifts, it starts to destroy our lives.  Like if we're discontent with a spouse because we want something more, or don't see the beauty in nature anymore.  He wants us to be content with what we have.

I know this isn't easy, especially with societal views being against us, but rest is so so important.  Growth hormone is released into an infant while they sleep so they can experience growth.  Because of society I often feel pressured to be constantly doing work, studying, socializing, and just not taking time for myself.  The stress from everything really does take a toll on you, and you really just need to relax and get away from it all for a second.
(Writing inspired from today's sermon of rest, at Living Light Church)