I was challenged by this little piece of poetry when I first heard it 35 years ago. It challenges me still.
Said the Robin to the Sparrow,
“I should really like to know
Why these anxious human beings
Rush about and worry so.”
Said the Sparrow to the Robin,
“Why, I think that it must be
That they have no heavenly father
Such as cares for you and me.”
Author Unknown
It’s almost as if the Lord is saying to me, “I can’t pick that up until you put it down. I can’t solve that problem until you let go of it.” What is the Holy Spirit saying to me?
You don’t want to go overboard here. God expects us to do our daily work and that includes dealing with problems and challenges. With God’s guidance, there is usually something that I can do to work though a problem situation.
With that in mind, what I think God is saying to me is that I can’t ask in faith until I ask without anxiety. Worry is a form of unbelief. And the unbelief hinders God from giving me peace and from answering my prayer for solutions to the problem.
When I let go of things when I go to bed, I am trusting God to give me a peaceful nights rest and honoring Him by believing that He is going to act on my behalf.
God doesn’t need any sleep. As you’re falling asleep, ask God to work on anything that is troubling you while you rest. Peter tells us to “give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” (1 Peter 5:7 NLB)
Most of us probably know this verse, but how many of us actually do it? How much grief, stress, and anxiety have we been carrying around because we think we are too sophisticated to need to follow simple instructions?
While we should remain in an attitude of casting our cares upon the Lord all day long, there is something very special about doing it right before you fall asleep. During the day, there may actually be something that I can and should do to deal with the situation; but all that comes to an end when my head hits the pillow.
The night time is the right time to say, “God, I can’t do one single thing about this right now because I need to get some sleep. Please work on this for me while I rest, and if there is anything I need to do to handle this situation, help me to understand what that is when I wake up to face the new day.”
I recently finished one of the least restful vacations I’ve ever had. Nancy and I spent eight nights in a
For the first couple of days I was holding on by my fingernails, trusting the Lord to get me through moment by moment. Then came the weekend and the chance to apply what the Lord had taught me during my vacation.
I took a Sabbath. I told my brain to go into neutral and get some rest. After the Sabbath, I reminded myself, each night before I went to bed, to turn everything over to the Lord. And then I told my brain to get some rest. Almost immediately I went from feeling horrible to feeling fine.
It’s 10:40 p.m. as I write this. I am on a roll. Everything is flowing so beautifully. I can feel the anointing. I don’t want to quit. I have material in my mind/heart for about six more posts. Could anything be more pitiful than staying up way past your bedtime so that you can blog about getting enough rest?
It’s time to go to bed. I need my rest. I am a created being and not nearly as tough as I would like to believe I am. I’ll trust God to put me back into the flow of the anointing tomorrow evening after work.
“What about daily rest? Can I take a Sabbath every day?” Yes you can. I recommend that you spend about one third of every day taking a Sabbath rest. We call this period of the day “sleep.”
God tells us to plan our rest when it comes to the Sabbath day. Mark it on your calendar. Do it regularly. Don’t feel guilty about it. Be humble enough to admit to yourself that you need to rest.
You should do the same thing with your sleep. You should be humble enough to admit that you are not super human and that you need your sleep. You should approach your sleep with the same mental attitude that you approach your Sabbaths or your vacation.
“I’m going to rest now. I need to rest. God wants me to rest. I’m laying all of my problems aside now. I’m on vacation. I’m going to sleep.” I think you will be amazed at the difference a conscious decision to rest can make in both your days off and in the quality of your sleep. You are a problem solving machine. Your little brain is constantly simmering with ideas and struggling with problems. You need to tell yourself to turn all that off. It may take some practice at first, but in a very short time you will come to realize just how hard your mind was working and how wonderful it feels as you learn to let your mind rest.
There are wonderful promises in the word of God about supernatural peace of mind.
None of these promises will work the way they are supposed to if day after day, month after month, and year after year you ignore your need to rest.
You will be amazed at the spiritual progress you will make in the paths of peace when your finally humble yourself by admitting that you need to get your rest.
Always remember that physical rest is only half of the rest that you need. You need to take a worry holiday. Actually, we shouldn’t be worried about anything because we are praying about and trusting God for everything. But you can at least get a start on that life of peace by gentling reminding yourself that you are on Sabbath and that you are not going to think about that problem right now. You will think about it after the Sabbath is over. The only exception to this rule is if the Holy Spirit suddenly starts speaking to you and giving you wisdom about what to do. In that case you aren’t worrying about the problem, you are receiving the answer to the problem.
Remember, each Sabbath is a mini vacation. Plan to relax and on the moment when your Sabbath begins get into that “vacation” frame of mind.
If the Creator of the human body tells me that I need to rest one day in seven, then my body and my mind are designed to work at their optimal efficiency if I rest one day in seven.
It is a humbling thing to learn to rest. When I decide to rest, I am admitting to myself that I need to rest. I am acknowledging that I am not strong enough, not tough enough to go day after day after day without rest. I am acknowledging that God is way smarter than I am and that God says that I need to get some rest.
Maybe we aren’t as lazy as we think we are; maybe we are just tired and stressed out. I wonder if we really got the physical and emotional rest that God tells us that we need if we would suddenly find the energy to clean out that basement or garage (or whatever else it is we keep putting off)?
God is smarter than we are. I’ll make you a bet. If you start to rest, you will find yourself accomplishing more in six days that you used to accomplish in seven.
God tells us that we need to plan to rest. There are no specific rules that we have to follow, but one way or another, we do need our rest.
My lawn really needs to be mowed. I was too busy all week to do it. It rained all day Saturday so I couldn’t mow it. Now it’s Sunday and sunny, but this is my Sabbath. What should I do?
There are no rules and no one is allowed to act as your judge. If the weather report shows that it will rain all day Saturday but be sunny on Sunday, then I might begin my Sabbath a little early on Saturday and end it in time to mow the lawn on Sunday. Or I might wait to mow the lawn until Monday. Or I might just go ahead and mow it on Sunday. There are no rules, but there is principle: I need to get some rest. I’ll do that as best I can and somehow get the lawn taken care of and I’ll do all of it without guilt.
“Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival, a new moon, or a Sabbath day.” (Col. 2:16)
That means that you are going to have to figure this out on your own with God’s help. I am trying to learn to take Sabbaths. I am not allowed to judge you if you are not interested in taking Sabbath rests. And you are not allowed to judge me because I am trying to practice this principle.
But what about legalism? “You’re trying to make us keep the Sabbath. Are you turning into some kind of a 7th Day Adventist? Are you converting to Judaism?”
No, no, and no. You don’t have to keep a Sabbath if you don’t want to. If you decide to try and keep a Sabbath and you end up doing some work on that day, it is not a sin. I’m not telling you that you have to do anything, but I am telling your that God is telling us that we need to learn how to rest. We need our rest.
Let’s review this basic concept once again. When the principle of the Sabbath was laid down at the creation, and when it was repeated in the ten commandments, the Sabbath wasn’t a day for attending religious services. There were no daily religious services to attend (unless you lived very close to the temple, and most Jews didn’t). The Sabbath was for resting. It was for taking it easy.
The commandment tells us that we need to remind ourselves to rest, that we need to plan our rest. Why are we so stressed out? Could it be partly do to the fact that we aren’t getting our rest?
Sleep in. If you have church in the morning, go to bed early the night before. This is definitely the day to take a nap, soak in the tub, or lay in the sun.
The Lord God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, the High and Holy One, commanded humans to rest. Remind yourself of this at the beginning of every Sabbath. This is a happy commandment.
God gave Adam and Eve three commandments in Genesis 1:1-2:4. One commandment was to rule the earth. The second required lovemaking (and babies that would have been borne without labor pains had mankind never sinned). The third was to take one day a week off.
This is the kind of God we serve. He loves us. He wants us to rest.
There are two key concepts to a successful Sabbath. First, don’t do any work. Don’t mow the lawn and don’t work out. Do spend some extra time in His presence. Focus on paper plates and microwave food. Don’t do any complicated cooking (unless cooking is a relaxing hobby). Feel free to watch some TV or play Scrabble. Try not to do any kind of work.
The second key to a good Sabbath is to enter into a restful state of mind. You might want to think of it as a vacation state of mind. Once a year my wife and I leave everything behind and retreat to the wilderness. From the moment my butt hits the car seat until the moment when I am pulling back into the driveway at the end of the trip I enter into a restful state of mind. If I find myself thinking about work, I tell myself to stop (unless the Lord is speaking to me about something work related). If something worrisome comes into my mind, I remind myself that I am mentally on vacation and change the subject. I’ll deal with that later, when I am back from vacation.
Your Sabbath is a one day weekly vacation. It is a gift God wants you to give to yourself. If you find yourself thinking about anything the least bit stressful, remind yourself that you are on vacation (Sabbath). You can think about tackling that problem tomorrow. Today is a day of rest.
I want to suggest that you begin to practice the art of the Sabbath. Pick a twenty four hour period every week and plan to rest. The Jewish Sabbath was from sundown Friday until sundown on Saturday, but you don’t have to use that time period. Any twenty four hours in the week will do. I go to church on Saturday night so I have decided to rest from 5:00 p.m. on Saturday through 5:00 p.m. on Sunday.
As the years have rolled along I have become aware of the fact that there is too much tension in my life, too much stress. I’ve tried to address it in the past, but I’ve never been truly successful at it. While I was meditating in the
Adam and Eve received three commandments in Gen. 1:28-2:3.
1) Make babies
2) Rule the earth
3) Rest
The seventh day was set aside for rest. It was not set aside for church services; there were neither churches nor services. It wasn’t set aside for Bible study; there were no Bibles. It was set aside for rest.
The very fact that God would need to order us to rest tells us two very important things about ourselves:
1) Human beings have tendency to get so busy with their lives that they forget to rest.
2) Human beings really, truly need to rest.
