Latest / The Rooted Woman Podcast / Rest is NOT Laziness: God Never Asked You to Earn Rest
Transcript
- Courtney: Welcome to the Rooted Women Podcast, the place for Christian women who are ready to grow deeper in their faith, find freedom from the things keeping them stuck, and confidently walk in the calling God has placed on their lives. Here we're getting rooted in biblical truth, having honest conversations about real life, and learning what it looks like to actually live out our faith. I'm Courtney, your host, and I'm so glad you're here. Let's get rooted. Okay, okay. I love a good play on words. So the theme that we're going with is this word not, right? Really taking apart the things that we maybe have ideas of that are actually not true. So today we're gonna talk about rest is not laziness. This is the third episode in a row where I've kind of done this with the title. I wasn't planning on it, but the Lord just likes to shift things around and we're going with it. So rest is not laziness. I want to talk about why God never asked us to earn our worth or Earn rest. Okay, we're gonna start off in Genesis. Genesis 2, 2 through 3. On the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. I think we have made rest something that you earn when you have done enough. And everybody's definition of enough enough is way different. And I think that's the problem, is because I've been talking a lot about. Burnout, survival mode, our capacity, margin and rest, right? These are themes that I've been talking about a lot in my posts on social media as we prepare to go into road to rooted. and so I've just been thinking about this. Like everybody has a different capacity because everybody is in a different season and we were made differently in the way that we handle. Circumstances and situations are all different. And so we have these different capacities. And then we also have a different need in different seasons, no matter if we are a high capacity person or not, for rest. God made us to need rest. And I think again, this idea that we've finally done enough, everybody's version of enough is different. And a lot of it comes through. comparison. we might look at somebody else's house that their house is always picked up, their laundry's always caught up, the kitchen is always clean, and think that we are not doing enough because we haven't done what they have done, right? Or maybe you just are personally somebody who cannot go to bed without taking care of every single item on your to-do list. And you feel like if you do all those things on your to-do list, then you can rest. And I think a lot of that is American culture. as we have grown up through this. a lot of my generation specifically are like corporate climbing. We were taught like graduate from high school, go on to college, get the degree, climb the corporate ladder, you know, the American dream, then you'll know you've made it. Get married, have children. and for some, keep climbing the corporate ladder, right? And that is literally a path to burnout. Like where in there do we see rest? Where in there do we see room for the Holy Spirit? We don't. We don't. And that's because the American dream is not the Christian dream. And I think that we need to differentiate between the two. When you have a definition of rest that says, I can't stop until blink, blink, blink, you will probably never stop. I know for me, when I was in that season, I never wanted to stop. I I think that I still get this way because my brain is very focused on like, we'll do these things. I like to have what I call time block. I time block my day. I really only do two major cleanups throughout the entire day in my home because I time block them. And it makes sense for our family to do a general pickup before nap and then pick up and reset the house as much as possible before bed. And not everything always gets done, but before I was chasing my tail throughout the entire day until 9 30 or 10 p.m., completely drained and exhausted. Absolutely no rest because I wanted to get everything done. And if everything wasn't done, I felt like I was absolutely failing. And I would say things like, It's just a busy season. I'll slow down after this week. I just need to push through. I'll rest when I get caught up. I feel guilty if I'm not doing something. And I started treating exhaustion like this badge of honor that I was wearing around. Like, look at me, I'm so tired. I'm doing all these things. It takes forever to get caught up. And I I liked to commiserate with people who were feeling the same because I felt if I wasn't doing those things and if I didn't feel burnt out, I either wasn't doing enough or I was lazy. That is is just a a lie that I believe that I was lazy if I was resting. Rest is not something that God created because human beings couldn't handle productivity. Like that's that's not what he did there. Rest was woven into creation before there was burnout, before there was over overwhelm, before, you know, Any any part of the American dream was input into our brains. the Lord created rest and he wove it into the very beginning for a reason. Because from the beginning, he knew that we needed it. And so he modeled it for us first because he wants to be a good leader and a good father, and he wants us to be made in his image and also walk in his image and likeness too. And so to understand it, that's why I went all the way back. Genesis instead of just reading like all who are, you know, labor and are heavy, laden, come and find me and you will get rest, whatever that verse says. I can't think right now because it's super late when I'm recording this episode. If you can't see hear me tripping over my words while I'm recording it, but you think about that verse and it's like, we always think of that when we talk about needing rest. But I don't want to just come to God when I am like completely burdened and I am weary and I am no, I want to come to God for rest just because I have it implemented in my week. implemented in my day to make sure that I am not completely burnt out and just flat as a pancake on the floor exhausted before I do the next thing. Cause I don't think that that's the way that God created us to live. I want to go back again to the part in Genesis 2, 2 that says, and on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done. This is really important. It says here that God worked, like he finished his work that he had done. Biblical rest is not rejecting work. We're not saying you can't work, you can't do these things, and you're going over the top or you're doing something wrong or you're inherently sinning if you are a productive person, if you are maybe even a high capacity person. scripture doesn't present work as inherently bad. work existed before the fall. God creates, God orders, he was building, he was producing. And then throughout Genesis one, there was movement. Like he made, he separated, he called, he created, he blessed. There is purpose and intentionality in every single thing that God was doing. And there is work, right? So this is not me telling you that ambition, productivity, being high capacity is bad. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not telling you to stop pursuing the things that God has placed in front of you. It's not saying that you shouldn't build a business or write a book or raise your babies a certain way or serve at a church alongside carrying your baby, you know, and your baby carrier and spin all these different plates because some of those things we have to do and some of those things we get to do. And there are yes from the Lord and pursuing excellent excellence in them is not bad. Work isn't the enemy of rest. I'm gonna say it again. Work is not the enemy of rest. The problem starts when work becomes the place that we go to prove our worth, when accomplishment is your identity, when productivity is the way that you seek and receive validation. When we cannot stop, because stopping makes us question whether or not we are still valuable, right? That's where I want us to notice the wording, God finished his work. Like there was an endpoint to where God had stopped creating and paused and rested. Not because there was nothing else that he could possibly do. He could probably keep working all the time because he is God, right? And he probably doesn't ever reach the point of burnout. I can say with confidence, God does not burn out. God is always working on our behalf and he's not burnt out. It but he intentionally put that pause and that stop there because he was modeling this for us. God is infinite and he could go much further than we can go. But why do we think that for some reason we don't need that rest that God implemented for us, that he modeled for us, that he intended for us? He stopped working Because what he intended to accomplish was completed. And that doesn't mean that we have to complete every task on our to-do list. But if we're being intentional and bringing excellence into the things we're doing, then we know that rest is important so that the next day or the next hour, we can go back and bring even more excellence. If I'm running on fumes, I'm not bringing excellen excellence. I'm not doing things intentionally. I am just trying to scrape up enough energy to get by and do the next thing, right? He God didn't work until there was nothing left. That could be done. Okay, because I'm sure he could have gone on and on and on. God is a creative God. He could have gone on and on and on, but he paused, he stopped, he finished work, and then he rested. That is different than going on until everything possible could be completed. And I think, especially if you are in a season of motherhood, you can go on and on like that forever. I could go on and on and finish the laundry always, all the time, but I don't. I don't, I sort it into baskets. I put it away every other day. We do one load of laundry a day. And that's just how we roll over here. Sometimes it gets put away every third day. I do not fold all of our clothes. We do the no-fold method. And at first it bothered me. But then I was like, every time I fold my kids' clothes and put them in their drawers because they are very independent and they want to pick their own clothes, they go to pick out their own clothes and mess up the drawers. And now I'm mad at them for being kids and being independent and messing up their drawers. And going back in and doing the work again. And it was just creating so much more chaos for me. So I stopped doing it. Does that mean that I'm somehow so much less productive or my worth has now fallen because I'm not folding my kids' clothes in perfect, you know, little lines in their drawers? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. There's a stopping point. There's intentionality in everything that we do. And when we do that and we look at it that way, I think that we we accept the word I want to use, accept. We accept the rest that God has carved out for us. So then we move into God rested. He rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. Now, obviously, this cannot mean that God was completely exhausted. God doesn't get tired like us. He wasn't six days into creating and saying, like, I cannot make one more thing here. Like I cannot do it. I need time to recover. That wasn't the language that God was using. So when scripture says that God rested, we're seeing something that is completely different than physical exhaustion. He ceased from work. Like he stopped. He paused working. I need you to listen to this. Stopping is not the same as failing. You are allowed to stop. If you haven't been letting yo stop self stop, I want you to start stopping. Say that five times fast. If you are not allowing yourself to stop, I want you to practice leaving room, leaving something for tomorrow and stopping at a certain time or a certain part of your list to be able to give yourself room. Rest okay. You are allowed to have limits. You're allowed to say, I've done all that I can do for today, or the amount that I'm putting on my to-do list every day is a little bit too much, and I need to reconfigure this. You're allowed to say that. Somewhere in our belief system, we have clung to this idea, right? That again, if we stop, we're lazy. But what I told myself was, no, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I'm being intentional and that I want to bring excellence. And when I looked at it that way, I'm like. Of course, then I'm gonna stop because I wanna be excellent in everything I do, my type A personality. So it's okay if you if you stop and rest because you want to do better at the things that God has put on your plate. And then ask yourself again, what are the things that God has given you to have on your plate? And what are the things that He is maybe telling you to set down so that you do have more room to rest? Because again, our to-do list will never be done if you have signed up for serving at five different things at the church and you also have three children and, you know, basketball and soccer and, you know, women's ministry and mom's group and whatever else you can even think of to add on there because I'm sure people can think of a lot. I just I think that it's so important that we really are intentional about seeking God and the yeses and the no's within our season that we're in so that we know where our capacity could be God given, right? the God given capacity that He has He has intended for that season. I know that when I have a newborn, my season looks very different than when I have a two or three year old, you know, as the youngest. Newborn life is sometimes in some ways easier for certain things that I have the capacity for. But then there are also times where it is more limiting for me because I'm nursing more often and things like that. Now I get into like the two and a half to three and a half time frame. Forget about it. My capacity looks way different in certain ways and also way greater in other ways. It's easier now to pack up and go in the car. I don't have to, you know, think about bringing a bottle or when I'm gonna have to nurse next or any of that. I can just get in the car and go. But in other ways, when we're at home, I have a two and a half year old. So she's getting into everything and my capacity is less as far as the the things that I can put on my plate inside of my home. And so being aware of that and praying through it and bringing it before God and saying, what can I handle in this season and what is a yes and what is a no and how can I be more intentional and reveal to me, Father, where I can set something down. When we have those conversations, you're not going to hear this audible voice that's like, cross that last thing off of your to-do list, but you will s sense this Holy Spirit conviction of like, you've been knowing for a while that you needed to set that thing down. So why don't you do that and see what that feels like, you know? And you you just know in your spirit, okay, I know I need to set this thing down. I've known for a while, I've been dragging my feet, but I know that it will also give me so much more room to rest. And it's this thing that makes me feel on edge or overwhelmed, or it's like the tip of the iceberg. I'll be okay all week. And then as soon as that thing comes up, it's like, whoa, I don't know that I have enough time to give my all to this. Maybe that's the thing that you need to set down, right? Same thing. Maybe sometime you get sick. And you had all these things on your on your plate and all these things that you're supposed to be, you know, following through on that you've committed to, but you're sick and you can't do it all. And then all of a sudden you get in your head that you're failing because you're sick and you can't do it all. And then you start spiraling and somehow you get into survival mode and you never fully recover from that sickness because you feel like you have to keep going even when you don't feel well. So you didn't really allow yourself to rest there. And now you're sick for a month instead of being sick for three days because you couldn't rest. Because you had absolutely no wiggle room on your calendar. I know who you are. I know how you feel because I was her. I was you. I used to be that way 100%. And learning how to make more room on my schedule has been the best thing that I've ever done for me, for my marriage, for our family. if you think that you can like quote unquote work until you break and then you'll just recover later, that's not part of flourishing. Like rest is a part of God's design for human. flourishing for his sons and daughters to flourish and to do the best so that we can be on mission for his kingdom And if we want that version of us, right? Thinking about it as sons and daughters, if we want that version of us, then I cannot just work, work, work, work, work until I break, take a rest and then get back up and work, work, work, work, work, work, work. That's not it. I should work with excellence, work with intentionality, work with purpose and rest. And then come back and work with intentionality and work with excellence and work with purpose and rest. And I should be moving through things like that instead of constantly, okay, what's the next thing? And I have to do this and I have to do that. That is not the way to live, right? That's just not the way to live. And when we slow down, what does Genesis say? God blessed the seventh day. God blesses that rest. He's not. apologizing for it or like somehow calling it wasted time. He didn't put it in the Bible for no reason. It's not that it's unproductive. It's a blessed time of rest. And how much more will we see God's blessing on our life if we pause enough to rest to take a deep breath? For a whole season I literally could not remember the last time that I took a deep breath. That was scary. I tried to take a deep breath in that season and even my husband was coaching me through it and I'm like, I don't remember the last time I did this and I feel like I can't. And I realized at that point, I'm like, my goodness, my stress is just like out of control. And I am doing way too much and I don't even remember how to rest. Please don't get there. So this is this is your permission to rest, to create space for reflection and auditing what's on your plate and if it's working for you in this season and what the Lord is asking you to do. Rest allows you to notice what. being rushed will keep you from seeing. When you're rushing, rushing, rushing, rushing, there's no room to see what the Lord is trying to point out. It's really hard to even make out a gratitude list when you're in a season of rushing. It's like, my goodness, what am I grateful for? And what did happen? But when I'm slowed down enough, I can pause. I can look at the things that my kids are doing that I'm really proud of. I can call out specific things throughout the day in the week that I'm like, this just made me like gush with so much just like gratefulness for the Lord and so much joy, or this little moment gave me so much peace, or this was like such a promise or a God wink, you know, that I saw play out in real time. But when I'm rushing, I don't see those things. I don't have time to reflect on those things because I have to keep going. Right. and I think that God wants us to pause enough to reflect on the good things that He's doing in our life. Okay. And the last part of that verse too is that God made it holy. So he set apart Rest. He set apart the day for rest. He made it holy. Think about that. The first thing in scripture that God explicitly explicitly, if I could say the word, makes holy is not people, animals. It is rest. It is time. It is a set apart window of time for us to be able to do that. I try to do it on a regular basis. throughout the day, but then also weekly to have time where it's like, okay, I'm shutting down, I'm resting, I'm reflecting, I'm thinking about how this past week went, I'm thinking about what's on my plate for the next week. Where do I have time for rest? That's really what I'm looking for. I used to look at my schedule and be like, okay, how can I fit in one more thing? And now I look at my schedule and my first question is like, do I have enough time to rest or is there too much on the schedule? And if for some reason accidentally something got put on the schedule there and it's just a bit too much. I find something that I can cut back on because I know what weeks like that will do to me. And it's not good. It's not good. And it's not godly and it doesn't honor him. So I wanna stay away from that. And that's your permission to do the same thing. Okay, I want to connect this back to your identity. Your productivity was never supposed to determine your worth. For so long, I thought that I was only worth as much as I did. And that was my whole identity was how much can I do? How much can I say yes to? How much can I be involved in any one thing that I was doing? Mostly because I have a lot of passion for a lot of things, but also because I didn't have my identity soul rooted in the Lord. It was rooted in my worth. And my productivity was directly connected to my worth. So that made me say yes to more until I was completely burnt out. It's because we've attached our worth to our busyness that we do that to ourselves. And then we wonder, like, how did I get here? Why am I in survival mode? Why am I stressed out all the time? my goodness, why am I having panic attacks? Well, let me tell you why. It's because we are doing way too much and we have this idea of what success looks like. And we can all define that a little bit differently too, just like the ha you know, have you done enough? We can all define this very differently based on our upbringing, our circumstances, where we're at in life right now. But I think that we could all sit down, reflect, and ask, what happens internally when I rest? Am I am I reflecting on how I feel when I'm resting? Do I immediately feel guilty? Do I start thinking about everything that I should be doing? Do I compare myself to somebody else who might be doing more? Do I feel like I'm falling behind? That reaction will tell you whether or not you're tying your worth to your productivity and will also reveal to you maybe when you need to kind of slow down and take more time to rest. Because I think when we rest, it is it is easier for us to be rooted in our identity in the word in God, right? It is easier for me to make room for that reflection and that connection to Him when I'm giving myself rest. And so if my immediate thought is feeling guilty like I need to do more, I need to work on my identity as a daughter before anything else because I'll just continue to do more and do more and do more if I don't fix that identity problem first. I think we need to realize too that you're not more loved by God when you do more on your to-do list. You are not less loved by God on the days when you are not feeling well and you don't get as much done. Your productivity will change based on your season, your circumstances. Again, if you're sick, if you're feeling great, you know, depend if you're for a woman, the time of the month really affects us, right? and it will affect our productivity. So all of those things tied together will not affect the position. that we have in the kingdom of God as daughters. It doesn't affect his love for us, right? And God's character never changes just because we are more or less productive. And I think if we know that, it is easier for us to rest in our identity as his daughters. Something I said when we started the original holy habits challenge was that rest requires us to trust in the Lord. So to stop working means that I have to believe that everything does not depend on me, right? To shut down for the day for the night means that there's unfinished work and it doesn't all depend on me. To go to sleep without sitting there thinking about all the things that I'm missing out on or the things that I have to do tomorrow. Right. It allows me to rest within the limitations that the Lord gave me. God knew we needed to rest because He built in sleep as a necessity for us to take a Sabbath too. Like that means that I have to trust God that He can accomplish more through my obedience than I can accomplish if I was constantly striving 24-7. And I know in my season when I was really struggling with control and I was having a lot of that anxiety and I was tying my identity to worth, the thought of me stopping and me trusting God in that stopping was terrifying to me because control felt safer to me and busyness felt safer to me because they were again within my control. Constant movement kept me from having to sit with all the things that were happening inside of me. So maybe ask yourself that too. Are you just constantly being productive because you're avoiding the thing that God wants you to work through? Rest will give you an opportunity to truly lean on the Lord in a different way because rest will create enough margin for you to deal with those things that are happening inside of you. And not only to deal with them, but to surrender them, to be freed from them. If you're like, I'm struggling with anxiety all the time and I feel like whenever I rest, it's like I I And worse off because I just feel like all the things that I need to do are spiraling in my head. Well, you probably need to be freed from that. And the Lord can do that. I want you to know that. The Lord can bring you freedom and deliverance from that anxiety. And He can bring you freedom and deliverance from the depression. And He can bring you freedom and deliverance from being the the feeling that you have to be constantly on the go or constantly saying yes. He can free you from that. Okay, I'm jumping all over the place with asking yourself how you're feeling when you're resting. So I'm just going to give you the practical questions that I want you to maybe journal or go through. So number one, where do you feel like you cannot stop or cannot rest or you have to keep pushing through? I want you to identify that thing and ask yourself, what are you trying to prove here? What are you trying to prove in that thing that you won't set down that you're you're not stopping? You feel like you just have to keep pushing through. If you can just get to the end of the year, what are you trying to prove? And then what would it look like to treat rest as obedience instead of a reward? What would it look like in your life to treat rest as obedience instead of a reward? I want you to go through those questions, pray about it, and really sit with the Lord in it because maybe he'll reveal something to you that you need to set down or that you need to create more margin in your week. He's going to show you something within that as you sit and reflect with him. As we close, I want to leave you with this picture. The opening pages of scripture give us a rhythm. God works and he he creates and then he finishes. And then God rests. And he doesn't rest because he's he's weak or again has physical exhaustion or burnout, the way that all the terms that we use nowadays, right? He stops because for that moment he completed his work and he carved in rest. He blessed it, he made it holy. So maybe you don't need permission, so to speak. To become less productive or to set things down. You don't need to stop like caring about your goals specifically. Maybe you just need to ask if you have enough margin to actually rest. Right? I'm not telling you sit there and go through these questions and think, okay, what can I say no to or what can I back out of? No, that's not it. I'm just asking you. Do you have enough margin to really rest within that? And what would it look like if you did? What would your relationship with the Lord look like if you did? So sit on that, think about it. I want to pray for you, and then we'll wrap up today's episode. So, Heavenly Father, I just thank you for the woman listening on the other side of the phone or computer or wherever she's listening right now, Father, that you are just drawing near to her father, that you are revealing to her the things that maybe she needs to set down or maybe even just pull back a little bit, delegate. Sometimes if we just delegate, it creates more room for us to be able to pull back and rest. I just ask God that you reveal it to her if she doesn't have enough margin, if maybe she's going, going, going, because she's avoiding dealing with some things that maybe you want to stir up and uproot in her heart or in her mind, in her life, father, so that she can be fully free, free indeed from the panic, from the anxiety, from the depression. From the constant feeling like she needs to just be on and never has a moment to just sit and rest with you, Lord. And so I just pray, God, that you just open our eyes and reveal and just make it known what that thing is, Lord. And then God just convict us where we need more convicting to be able to rest, to be able to surrender to you, to be able to trust you more. God, and I just pray that testimonies will be bred out of this. time of just reflection and and shifting in this next season with you, Father. God, we thank you that you created rest, that you modeled it for us, that you blessed it and that you set it apart. God, that we don't have to feel guilty when we rest, God, but that we can r just rest in your presence and trust that that you have it all in your hands, God, and that we don't have to. We just thank you that you are the Almighty Father and that we can trust you because you are good in all things, Lord. In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'd appreciate it if you shared this out with somebody that you think that needs to hear it this week. go, have a great rest of your week, and don't forget to rest. I'll see you back here next Thursday.