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May 4, 2022 - January 19, 2023
The weight of an unexamined life lies heavy against the heart of the weary. Pushing and pushing until it nudges you right past sanity into the pits.
We want more time. But there is no more time. Time is. It is both infinite and finite. It goes on and on. With or without us it will continue. Our number of days are known by God alone.
I feel I’m nothing if I’m doing nothing. My worth is wrapped tight around my endless activity.
Funny how everyone can smell the char of your slow burn except the one standing in the fire.
Sleep is different from rest, but good-quality sleep trickles down from a life well rested. We may sleep in response to rest, but resting doesn’t require us to be in a state of sleep.
Sleep is solely a physical activity. Rest, however, penetrates into the spiritual. Rest speaks peace into the daily storms your mind, body, and spirit encounter.
Sadly, many of us spend too much of our days doing and not enough of our days being.
Sometimes people want to hear the truth, and sometimes they just want to hear what they want to hear.
Rest had become synonymous with sleep or a cessation of all activity.
The most effective rest occurs when we are purposefully reviving the parts of our life we regularly deplete.
What is the one souvenir every vacationer would love to take home? Time. The gift of being at rest, free from schedules and agendas.
escapism is not rest;
Downsizing your life without a restful plan for filling the gaps only opens the door for other enemies like laziness and apathy.
Sleeping pills are not successful at providing quality rest. Their goal is simply to get you to sleep. Rest will still be required, and it does not respond to medications.
People-pleasing, workaholic go-getters don’t excel at rest without an internal battle.
Rest is not a one-size-fits-all commodity.
It isn’t in the number of hours slept. It isn’t in the number of meditations, prayers, or mental exercises completed. It isn’t in quitting your job or blowing off obligations. The secret life of the well rested is found in answering one key question. What type of rest have you been missing?
change. I’ve found fear to be a pathetic enemy. Hopelessness is what truly kills.
Healing occurs when we allow ourselves the time, space, and grace to be in the presence of God in the middle of our busy lives.
We are all connected by our collective humanity. Sometimes the hard places have to be broken before we are willing to let others in.
Rest is about replenishing, restoring, renewing, recovering, rebuilding, regenerating, remolding, and repairing. Rest begins with the prefix re- because it requires us to go back to a prior state. It is a second chance. It’s an opportunity to put back in order anything that has shifted out of alignment with God’s best.
Running is beneficial only if it takes you toward where you desire to be.
The most effective forms of active physical rest include dynamic stretching, breathing exercises, soaking baths, prayer walks, and stretching poses.
None of us are at our best when depleted.
We have to stop acting like honoring our body’s physical needs is a sign of weakness. Rethink your position on body care.
Studies reveal one-third of the population feels worn out because of our overbooked lives.
Next time you’re tempted to grab a can of Red Bull, force yourself outside for a ten- to twenty-minute walk.
Life is not all about the doing; it’s about the being, the seeing, the knowing, and the experiencing.
When you are awake, don’t stay in the same position for more than an hour. You are not dead yet. Keep your body flexible and in gentle motion.
The life-changing power of tidying up your mind starts with letting go of those thoughts that are not producing a positive effect in your life.
Much like our social media news feeds, our mental background noise is often infused with negativity.
Rather than willingly focusing on positive affirming thoughts, the mind prefers to settle upon negative ones that intensify stress, worry, anger, and frustration.
Mental rest involves relinquishing the constant stream of thoughts entering your mind quickly and obtaining a sense of cerebral stillness.
Stressors from the day can remain in the brain’s stream of consciousness and be carried over into sleep, keeping the mind active when it should be at rest.
we hold on to some mental baggage past its expiration date. Don’t allow your mind to keep you from being present in the current moment. You can shift where you place your attention and meditate on those things that produce good fruit in your life.
If the mind can deplete you physically, it stands to reason the reverse can be true: You can be physically strengthened by the renewal of your mind.
Some activities that do best in time blocks include managing email, engaging in social media, completing menial office tasks, surfing the internet, video gaming, watching television, and catching up on current news events.
Make a conscious effort to fill your mental space with restorative thoughts.
Philipians 4:8
Your mind is sacrificial. It does not seek rest because it loves protecting your body more than it values itself. Mental rest will require your mind to let down its guard.
One way to create a mental sanctuary is to choose a characteristic of God to rest on each day like love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and faithfulness. Let each characteristic be the mental place you return to throughout the day as you practice creating a mental sanctuary.
Meditate on the fruit of the spirit
Shelved emotions are the rawest kind.
Emotions are powerful. They can override thoughts, influence our relationships, and transform our behavior. They empower us to understand ourselves and overcome challenges.
Emotions are to be explored, encountered, and enjoyed. They were never meant to be bottled up.
You experience emotional rest when you no longer feel the need to perform or meet external expectations.
Emotions are similar to infections; they are highly contagious.
Most successful people admit they have different personas in different situations.
Emotional unrest leads to increased fear, shame, and desire to hide our current truth. We are skilled at hiding, even when we want to be found.
Hiding looks like rest. It shields, protects, and covers. But unlike rest, hiding drains. It pulls apart and separates. Rest rejoins. It is a reunion with your best self. You, before the hiding. You, before the shame.
It is independent of the external influences of what others think and their power to manipulate your personal response to situations.
Authenticity
This predisposition to empathize can cause us to mistakenly interpret those feelings as our own, leaving us vulnerable to catch the emotions of the people we are around.
