Looking Well

So we’ve talked about working restfully — now what does that mean practically? How does that look? Here are a few ways those principles might be reflected in your life. There are many possible ways, so feel free to share your own!

• When you hear the familiar refrain, “I should do this…,” make like a two-year-old and ask, “Why?” If that becomes the automatic response, you will have the opportunity to check your heart. Why should you? Because you will please others? Because God will drop you like a hot potato if you don’t measure up? Because it looks good? Because someone said so? Because it’s there?
  If you are pleasing others or trying to look good to the world in general, remind yourself that there is One you desire to please most of all. Will this action please Him? If you are trying to earn God’s love, remind yourself that He loves you out of Himself– not because of your work. You are free to bake the cupcakes or buy the cupcakes (or skip the cupcakes) because you are still His beloved child either way. If you don’t have a good reason at all, redirect yourself to what you know you need to do today.

• Set a timer periodically throughout your day for a few minutes of just stopping in your tracks. It’s a mini-reset. (The beautiful thing about snoozing an alarm on your phone is that you can put off the few minutes for actual urgent activities that can’t pause in that moment, but you won’t lose the need for stopping.) Take the time to breathe and check your heart and activities. If you aren’t on the right track, now is the time to adjust.

• Take a nap — if possible, when possible. Just 20 minutes in and out will recharge your body and mind for the rest of the day.

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!