God has created us in a wondrous way. The grit and resilience of the human heart is marvelous. At the same time, we carry a certain frailty that cannot be ignored. We are subject to fatigue, injury, sickness, and death. We are truly fearfully and wonderfully made.

Part of the requirement of our frame is that we must rest. Rest is a critical and often overlooked necessity. When God created humanity, He required us to rest at least one day a week, i.e. sabbath. At the same time we all also require 7-8 hours a night to sleep. So, roughly 1/3rd of our lives are spent asleep and at least 1/7th of the remaining 2/3rds is to be spent at rest. This amounts to about half of our lives being spent asleep or at rest, which does not account for the daily moments of repose and reflection that each one of us require to function. We can all agree that physical rest is critical and burning the candle at both ends can be physically harmful and can even have debilitating effects.

At the same time the Lord also has many promises and much to say about rest for the soul and spirit.

Matthew 11:28-29 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

I’m convinced that most of the internal difficulties we each face are a result of having a discomforted, disquieted, and restless soul. Jesus promised that we would have rest for our soul when we come under His yoke (i.e leadership and direction) and learn from Him how to live gently and humbly. To say it a different way, when we come to Jesus, humble ourselves, and allow Him to lead our lives, our souls will find rest. But when we refrain from coming to Him and take upon ourselves the undue burdens of making our own way and fighting for ourselves, our souls will experience an unhealthy restlessness and deep fatigue.

This says so much about how we are to live and how Jesus wants to be involved in our lives. There are many things that happen that are outside of our control or ability; these are cares that fatigue our souls. Jesus invites us to cast these cares upon Him so that we can live free of care and undue burdens in following His leadership.

Consider John’s prayer for the church:

3 John 1:2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.

A prosperous soul is not a given just because a person is a believer. There is a necessity of coming to Jesus and opening our hearts to Him that enables us to exchange the emotional weight and weariness that we carry and trade them for rest in our souls. It is critical in this hour that the Church give herself to the exercises necessary to have a prosperous and healthy soul. This includes a weekly sabbath, as a God-centered day of repose and reflection. It also includes not taking responsibility for burdens that are outside of our control. Rest is critical to having a healthy inner life. I pray you find the grace of rest and your soul prospers.

Here are some of my key takeaways regarding rest:

1.  Nothing and no one is made to “red line” at all times. None of us can be healthy by going as hard as we can at all moments.

2.  Wholeheartedness is not in opposition to rest. Being wholehearted means we take seriously Jesus’ admonitions to rest while still living wildly abandoned to His will.

3.  Rest requires faith. We will only rest when we believe God is going to take care of us and our circumstances.

4.  We will not rest if we are motivated by fear. Many are motivated and driven by fear rather than motivated by love and led by the Spirit. This is an essential truth: Faith rests, fear is restless.

5.  The ultimate result of being motivated by fear is that our hearts will fail. “Men’s hearts will fail them because of fear.” (Luke 21:26) This is not our portion or destiny, rest for our souls is.