This week's Theme: A Quiet Place
Day 1: Come, Get Some Rest
At various times in my life and career, I have worked on complex and challenging projects requiring high levels of order, precision, analysis— projects demanding intense focus and concentration. The hours of “brain-busting” would be at times quite overwhelming, and the quest for a “solution” would be an unrelenting taskmaster. But at the end of it all, the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment would be its own reward as results validated the crunch, the effort, and the exertion.
My problem has been that once launched into a process, I have often had trouble stepping away. Long past the point of exhaustion, I would press, and push, and press some more, reluctant to give up the chase for the one character, the one formula, the one element I needed to wrap and seal and package my work with a giant, over-sized bow.
I knew that over-exertion never produced the ideal “pause point” I sought—in fact, painful experience has taught me that the delirium of exhaustion is the sure basis for lost ground, and for negative and sometimes even disastrous results. But threatening deadlines, and the constant fight to escape interruptions would fuel the rationale to “keep going” long after the window of opportunity needed to be bolted and shuttered.
I have gotten considerably better, although I still sometimes struggle with “pause-points.” But I know that stepping away for a walk, a shower, or even just a simple location change is often the key to recharging, regrouping, or reigniting thoughts, ideas and creative energy. And I am trying to pay greater attention to the need for adequate rest and relaxation.
I am not the only one, apparently, who needs a firm “pause point.” I am fascinated by an account in Mark’s gospel, where the apostles, too, had to be pulled away from swirling activity:
The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to Him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, He said to them, “Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:30-31).
Too many of us, unfortunately, can identify with that scene. In our busy corporate spaces, hectic ministries, revolving-activity-households, and fast-paced agendas, “they did not even have a chance to eat” seems to be the norm.
But from the dawn of creation, rest was an important part of God’s design. He implemented a Sabbath rest (Genesis 2:2-3) intended to address the need for restoration in our bodies, souls, mind, emotions, and overall psyche.
Nowadays, the assault on rest is fast, furious, targeted. But never was rest more needed. And in all the shaking and the swirling, the chaos and the churning, the din and the doom-scrolling, a Saviour still whispers, “Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper rev’rence, praise.
O Sabbath rest by Galilee,
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity,
Interpreted by love!
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small Voice of calm.
In simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside the Syrian sea
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow Thee.
~ John G. Whittier ~ 1872
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