The concept of rest and work — the relationship, the need and reasons for both — has been on my mind lately. How should I rest? How should I work?

Work confidently. Children of God work in the strength God provides. We work from a place of rest. We work heartily because we are blessed and free. We work calmly because we know who we are and why we work.

Think about the difference between a child laboring long and hard in order to feed herself and her family for that day. Without her work, starvation awaits. There is a lot riding on that effort. The weight is on her shoulders. Now think about a child who wants to work to earn money for a birthday present for her mother. She looks for opportunities, sweeping the garage for her grandmother or picking up branches in a neighbor’s yard. She works and buys the present without any concern for survival or losing her mother’s love on that birthday. One is working desperately; the other is working out of love. One is self-sufficient and must earn life each day, but the other is resting in plenty of provision. Which one is closest to our hearts as we work today?

Everything we do is made possible only by the grace of God. That grace makes us both willing and able to work, to make effort to fulfill our responsibilities and do what is good and right, so that we please our Father. His grace also makes those weak and spotty efforts an eternal pleasure because God sees us, every single day, through the lens of His beloved Son. The work has been done by Him; we are just reflecting and responding to that work daily.

We don’t literally rest all the time, but we take the rest we are given and gratefully spend the energy we gain from it in productive efforts to please the Giver of that rest. We love Him, and we know that He loves us with an everlasting love. That brings so much freedom to our work!