08/28/2023
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:29
John Mark Comer writes in The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, “the solution to an overbusy life is not more time. It’s to slow down and simplify our lives around what really matters.”
As we’ve learned over the last few days, praying, “Give us this day our daily bread,” is a petition to receive the essential things for a Kingdom-shaped life. It is our prayer to rely on God to participate in what really matters in God’s Kingdom. While this prayer naturally applies to our priorities and provision, it also applies to our bodies.
Our day-to-day lives can easily fill up with lots of activity – both necessary and unnecessary. Even the most Kingdom-shaped life can become crowded, leaving your body exhausted and burnt out. As John Mark Comer implies, the solution isn’t to have more time to do more things.
The solution to exhausted and overworked bodies is to rest and honor our physical, mental, and emotional limits. We are dependent on God, not only in matters of the spirit, but in matters of our physical lives too. Working beyond our physical limits isn’t a sign of strength and superiority; it is evidence of not trusting God to complete what He started.
If you’re feeling tired and weary, maybe the daily bread you ask for today is rest. However, if rest can’t come in the form of a less busy schedule, choose instead to breathe deeply. Just a few minutes of deep belly breathing and focusing on a verse in Scripture can bring rest and refreshment to your whole body.
These intentional moments of deep breathing before God can help you remove the yoke of control and stress and replace it with the easy yoke Jesus offers. Your body wasn’t made to run non-stop like the Energizer Bunny. Though resting may feel like a weakness, your dependence on God is your strength.
