Rest is almost a foreign concept in our culture these days. We are so busy, and fill our lives constantly with productivity, hoping that the busyness will make us feel strong, superior or like we are at least doing life in a way that makes others think we have some value. I think sometimes we are trying to prove ourselves worthy of our own lives. We run at such a pace that we don’t have to stop and think, fostering true relationship or accepting the peace that rest brings.

Rest has almost become equated with laziness. I think often of how in Luke 10, Jesus spoke to Martha when Mary was sitting at His feet, and I wonder how anything practical was supposed to get done with people just sitting around! I would have had the same exasperation as Martha, and have had it in moments of stressful preparation. Jesus wasn’t criticizing Martha’s practical bent, I think, but rather saying that work must come from a source of rest, intimacy and relationship.

Sometimes I believe I have a handle on all that I need to get done in a day, and I’m stressed immediately with anything I see as an interruption in this schedule I see as necessary to get so much accomplished. I think God might purposefully send me interruptions on these days in order to remind me that productivity is not its own source. I must have something that provides strength, wisdom and direction, or I’m just spinning my wheels to accomplish what I have put on my list.