If we don’t get enough rest, we can experience long-term health problems and a shortened life expectancy. God wove rest into the fabric of creation.
Rest isn’t just about gaining our strength, but it’s also about trust. By allowing ourselves to rest, we demonstrate the belief that God will provide for the details of our lives, and we don’t have to strive in every waking moment.
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
I’m not sure that God was so exhausted from the act of creation that He needed to lay down for a day? I believe that he recognized the importance of creating a cycle of rest and renewal. In Mark 2:27 we read Jesus told the Pharisees that “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” In this God modelled the importance of rest and instructed us to make it part of our week.
Throughout the Old Testament, rest is a constant theme and it continues into the New Testament when Jesus promises His people rest for their weary souls.
Psalm 23 is one of the most well-loved passages of Scripture and is certainly one of my favourites.
He makes me lie down in green pastures (Psalm 23:2-3).
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
God has called each of us to our current role, but he wants us to rest so that we can be renewed. The last six months have been extremely busy for schools and as leaders you carry the burden of the business and the jobs that need to be done. Illnesses and absences amongst staff and students have placed an extra burden on schools, and leaders too have been subject to illness and absence. The coming school holiday break is an opportunity to take stock of your own wellbeing, consider rest and renewal, God would want you to.
DSLS
Eunice Stoll
