How many of us get enough sleep? How many of us get enough rest? This is something that I struggle with. I stay pretty “busy” At least for the most part. My family and I always have something to do. What I have noticed in the last few months is that God has been constantly reminding me of the importance of sleep and physical and mental health, so it must be a big deal.
A friend and I have a running joke about how we are going to get to bed at a decent time, and more times then not we both stay up way too late. For me I want to unwind. After a meeting or band practice, after we pick up the kids, and after we put them to bed I deserve to watch an episode of the crown, or watch some sports highlights. But one episode turns into two, which turns into three, and the next thing I know its 11:30 at night. ”WHAT AM I DOING UP SO LATE.” Of course I’m regretting that decision in the morning.
I read a lot of articles about leadership, and what it takes to be a good leader, and they all seem to have some type of rest application. Almost every single one talks about getting more sleep, or changing the scenery from the mundane cubical every day. At our last Elder meeting at Arise we carved out time to specifically talk about being depleted, or tired, and different types of rest. What is the difference between being tired and Depleted? Well in the article R&R David Lapin has it framed as Fatigue being physically and mentally tired, to the point of almost failure, and depletion is when your energy is being drained, you don’t have anything to give. You used all your reserves, and have nothing left. He also talks about how you can be one without the other. He used an example of an empty glass, you can rest it all you want but that won’t fill it back up, it’s still depleted. It still needs to be filled.
With this past year and all the craziness that has been and still is with the pandemic, a lot of us are depleted and mistake it for being tired. But you can‘t just get 8 hours of sleep or take a few hours off and do nothing to help with depletion. You have to do some restorative actions. Meditation, Reading the bible, taking a walk, and paying attention to all the sights and sounds. Spending quality time with loved ones, and checking in on loved ones. Seeing if they are tired or depleted. If you get a chance also check out this article by Jessica Stillman. Stillman talks about different kinds of rest, one that stood out to me was social rest. The article states it “Some people energize you. Others drain you.” If you spend too much time with the latter you will probably need emotional rest, you will need to cut back on people pleasing, and start to be authentic and honest with yourself. You have to know when to say I’m not alright, and be able to verbalize what’s going on.
Jeremiah 31:25 says “I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.” This is a spiritual refreshing, this resembles the gospel. The hungry and the thirsty will be filled. (Matthew 5:6) The weary shall be refreshed. (Matthew 11:28-29) I bring this up because we get rest in the Lord, He’s a restorative God. He restores His nations, His Children, He will fully restore His land.
When you think about it resting is a huge part of Gods story, so it should be a huge part of our story.
The Bible Project has so many helpful videos. Here is a great one about rest and the Sabbath.