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Rest

             For the director of music. For Jeduthun. A psalm of David.

Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. (Psalm 62:1)

          Have you ever found yourself unable to sleep? You may tell yourself that at least you’re resting as you toss and turn and your mind wanders, but in my experience, not sleeping means not truly resting. I may wake up the next morning feeling refreshed, but that’s not the same as being rested. While the definition of rest generally means “not doing,” resting is one of the hardest things I do, because it involves the automatic generation of “ghosts” – things that haunt me because I’m not getting them done. One of the restful things I did yesterday was mowing the back lawn, not because I enjoy the activity of following a noisy machine around and around the yard, but because now mowing it is off the agenda for at least a week.

          Real rest requires more than simply not doing. Perhaps more succinctly, it requires more than a physical cessation of activity. Psychology Today lists seven kinds of rest that we need: physical, mental, sensory, emotional, social, creative, and spiritual.[1] The time we spend asleep should address all of these, but when we can’t sleep, we tend to not get one or more of the other forms of rest.

          Another factor with rest is that it’s not just about not doing, but also about restoring some form of equilibrium. This is why, when I tried to require myself to “rest” on Sundays by not doing certain kinds of work, I ended up less rested than if I had done the work. I could not let go of enough different kinds of activities for the equilibrium to be achieved. One possible reason is that I didn’t trust God. Another is that I have made a god of activity (or certain activities). I couldn’t let go. And the answer isn’t just to let go, but to take hold of something else – of a true God.

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