Rest? Meditation? Really!? How do I even practice that? For some of you reading this, you might be thinking I hit the jackpot. I get to practice napping and having solitude. But when I heard those words from my professor, I wanted to weep. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t know how to rest and be with God.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This began my journey to figure out what rest is, what it could look like for me, and how it might be exactly what I needed<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t Wonder Ink\u2019s 3-year, 52-week children\u2019s ministry curriculum offers kids space to fully find their place in God\u2019s Big Story. Children discover they are Known by God, Loved by Jesus, and Led by the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n Rest simply means paying attention to our God-given needs and limits: the physical, mental and spiritual, and choosing to honor God through finding an unhurried rhythm in our everyday lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Life can often take on the pace of the NASCAR 500: the only way to do it is to go full throttle and not stop. But what happens when we live our lives at this pace?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rest is what grounds us in the presence of God. Psalm 62:1<\/a> says, \u201cTruly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him\u201d (NIVTM<\/sup>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Rest simply means paying attention to our God-given needs and limits: the physical, mental and spiritual, and choosing to honor God through finding an unhurried rhythm in our everyday lives.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Jesus talks about rest in Matthew 11<\/a>, and I love how The Message translation puts it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAre you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you\u2019ll recover your life. I\u2019ll show you how to take a real rest<\/strong>. Walk with me and work with me\u2014watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace<\/strong>. I won\u2019t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you\u2019ll learn to live freely and lightly<\/strong>.\u201d (Matt. 11:28\u201330, emphasis added)<\/p>\n\n\n\n What comes to mind when you read these words of Jesus? What words are pulling you in? What is God inviting you into? What would taking a real rest look like for you?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Adele Calhoun in her book, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, <\/em>said, \u201c\u2026We are human beings, not human doings. We are meant to live sane lives that partake of a deep and playful holy leisure\u201d (pgs. 64-65).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Growing up, I had this perception that rest was wasting time. It meant I wasn\u2019t needed, and I was losing out on a new opportunity. I allowed my desire for work and purpose to outweigh my actual needs. I remember writing about this in my journal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had to change how I viewed rest. I had to realign my priorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What if what I was doing for <\/em>God was actually hindering my ability to be with <\/em>God? So I re-focused, and for the first time, saw rest as purposeful and a part of how God created me. He created each one of us in His image, and He has shown us what it looks like to work and <\/em>rest. Simply be with Him. That is enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What if what I was doing for <\/em>God was actually hindering my ability to be with <\/em>God?<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n The best part of rest is there is no agenda \u2026 and it is the hardest part of rest, especially if you are in vocational ministry. What I began doing is what I call \u201clittle sabbaths\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I find pockets of time in my week to spend time in the presence of God. It could be as short as 5 minutes or as long as I need it to be (afternoon nap, anyone?) And I needed to block those times in my calendar to ensure that I would prioritize purposeful time with God to simply be.<\/em> What could it look like for you to find pockets of time for your little sabbaths?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rest looks different for every person, but<\/em> it is not replacing our work with other productive activities. The core to rest is that you don\u2019t produce, and you recognize your limits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n God did not make us to say \u2018yes\u2019 to everything. Sometimes rest means just stopping and choosing to not work past your limits. Ask yourself these questions: What is causing depletion in my life? Where am I choosing to work past my limits?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rest with God is the remedy for a broken and exhaustive spirit. If you find yourself resonating with my NASCAR 500 list, God only wants you to simply be with Him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Please hear these words (God speaks these often to me): <\/p>\n\n\n\n Look how far you have come. I have been longing to have you rely on Me and be with Me. I am always here, even when you think that I have deserted you. Leave behind your regrets and live in My love.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rest is paying attention to our God-given needs and limits and choosing to honor God through an unhurried rhythm in our everyday lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6170,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Leaning In: Find Rest and Reset in God","_seopress_titles_desc":"Rest is paying attention to our God-given needs and limits and choosing to honor God through an unhurried rhythm in our everyday lives.","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"blog_topic":[27,26],"blog_type":[13],"ppma_author":[39],"class_list":["post-5890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","blog_topic-faith-formation","blog_topic-leadership","blog_type-blog"],"authors":[{"term_id":39,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"kirsten-hitchcock","display_name":"Kirsten Hitchcock","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/mlzai04amy7e.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:80\/f:best\/https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kirsten-Hitchcock-scaled.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/mlzai04amy7e.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:80\/f:best\/https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kirsten-Hitchcock-scaled.jpg"},"author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Hitchcock","first_name":"Kirsten","job_title":"","description":"Kirsten Hitchcock is the Director of Digital Children\u2019s Ministry Resources at David C Cook and is the Children\u2019s Pastor at The Practice Church in South Barrington, IL. She has worked as a children\u2019s ministry director of churches large and small and has written and developed curriculums and articles for different publishers. She is the secretary of the Children\u2019s Spirituality Summit Board and has an MA from Wheaton College in Christian Formation and Ministry. She is a wife, a mom of two kids, and believes that coffee is a love language."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"blog_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_topic?post=5890"},{"taxonomy":"blog_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_type?post=5890"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=5890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mlzai04amy7e.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:80\/f:best\/https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Wonder-Ink-logo.png\"){kind=logo}
What Is Rest?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
Human Beings Need Rest<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mlzai04amy7e.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:80\/f:best\/https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/JournalEntryKH.jpg\")
Little Sabbaths<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
More from Kirsten<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
![\"mother](\"https:\/\/mlzai04amy7e.i.optimole.com\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:80\/f:best\/https:\/\/wonderink.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/GettyImages-83585634.jpg\")