The Necessity of Rest

I read C.J. Mahaney’s Humility ten years ago and there is one point that has remained with me and influenced me the most over this past decade: his thought on rest. He says this:

The fact is, God could have created us without a need for sleep. But He chose to build this need within us, and there’s a spiritual purpose for it. Each night, as I confront my need again for sleep, I’m reminded that I’m a dependent creature. I am not self-sufficient. I am not the Creator. There is only One who “will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4), and I am not that One.

There is a nightly rest, and a weekly rest. For the homeschool mom, Sally Clarkson recommends a week of rest after six weeks of continuous homeschooling.

But today, however, I would like to propose a mid-day rest.

Young children may nap at this time and use this time as a physical rest but there is, perhaps, a different sort of rest for mom during an hour or two of “alone” time— time to sip tea and read a book, time to exercise, time to sit outside and write, or perhaps, yes, even to lie down sleep (Praised are you, O Lord, my God, who brings sleep to my eyes and slumber to my eyelids). Even my six year old, who no longer naps, benefits from time alone. He can listen to an audio book, play with legos, color, or simply lounge about and consider the sacred and mundane.

We all need time to process and catalog our experiences and form a response to them. The contemplative life could begin in childhood, if afforded the opportunity.

In New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton writes:

. . . the interior life and contemplation are the things we most of all need — I speak only of contemplation that springs from the love of God.

In offering rest to our children and in offering rest to ourselves, we offer time and space for “the things we most of all the need,” that is a robust interior life and a habit of contemplation— the substance of which we are providing during our more active hours, since “every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul,” as Merton expresses.

As co-gardeners of our souls with God, we need time to weed and attend to the sprouts— either to discard or to save. And how can those two classes be discerned without time for observation and discernment, without time for contemplation? Indeed, I think so often we rush about seeking answers to questions we already know, that God has already whispered into our souls, if we were only quiet and still enough to hear His voice. He is our Shepherd and we are His sheep, yet we only know Him when He speaks if we have trained our ears to hear, if we have rested in His shadow and been fed from His hand. What is it to lie down in green pastures except to rest in the One who cares for us, who is with us, who is mighty to save? Who quiets us with His love, and rejoices over us with singing? Find rest, oh my soul, in God alone.

In rest, there is the renewing of our minds.

In rest, there is worship.

In rest, there is the meditation and contemplation of the mighty works and workings of God— His hidden hand, and His outstretched arm.

In rest, there is salvation— not shame.

In rest, we walk with God in garden. We hear His voice and are not afraid.

There is a time for all manner of things under the sun— including rest.

There is a time for thinking, and feeling, and doing— and each have their sabbath. There is a time for work and a time to refrain from working— or at least to work differently. There is a quote I once heard and will butcher to this effect:

He who works with his head, sabbaths with his hands.

And so, far be it from me to put limitations or parameters about what it means to rest— I only seek to encourage a regular ceasing from striving. Take mental time, and prepare a mental space to be still, to know that He is God (that we are His people), and to rest.

I’ll quote Mahaney in benediction and in encouragement for your set-apart time, perhaps your mid-day rest:

Seize this opportunity to mortify pride and cultivate humility by setting apart [rest] as a holy gift from God, as a reminder of your full dependence on Him, and as an occasion to examine your own heart before Him. Let the Spirit give you a new perception and appreciation of [rest], so that this seemingly ordinary act might be transformed into an opportunity to cultivate humility and weaken pride.