If You’re Exhausted, Rest.

Good morning…

“For today, and all days needed,” she texted me this poem.

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LET YOURSELF REST
If you’re exhausted, rest.
If you don’t feel like starting a new project, don’t.
If you don’t feel the urge to make something new,
just rest in the beauty of the old, the familiar, the known.
If you don’t feel like talking, stay silent.
If you’re fed up with the news, turn it off.
If you want to postpone something until tomorrow, do it.
If you want to do nothing, let yourself do nothing today.
Feel the fullness of the emptiness, the vastness of the silence, the sheer life in your unproductive moments.
Time does not always need to be filled.
You are enough, simply in your being.
– Jeff Foster –

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Breathing in the beauty of this quiet wisdom, I responded to my friend: “‘Come to rest.’ In Greek, this is the meaning of the verse ‘Pray unceasingly.’ Exhaustion can be a good thing, if it helps us ‘Come to rest.'”

“Rest is the stance for which we are designed,” I continued. “From that surrendered place of union with God, the Spirit rises up to initiate any action that is ours to do. Then we return again to our place of rest with God. This is a beautiful way of life, the simple lifestyle for which we are all invented and are intended to embody.”

Here’s how we know that we hold to the truth. And here’s how we put our hearts at rest, knowing that God is watching. If our hearts judge us, we know that God is greater than our hearts. And he knows everything (1 John 3:19-20, NIRV).

If you’re exhausted, LET YOURSELF REST. The signature of God is on your permission slip.

…Sue…