You need a break.      

I know you hate this idea, and so do I, but you really need to take a break.

Everyone around you is multi-tasking, phone-apping, book-cramming, reading or scheduling or building or flying – and you suspect they’re all more productive than you, so you’re pushing, sweating, clenching, bleeding to get this done. 

But you: you really need a break.

God commands rest.  How could He command rest?  I’d rather read my Bible and fight for the offering plate than REST.

Many of us have bought into the neurotic productivity of American Do-Ism, and it seems like everyone is inventing something, starting a grassroots nonprofit, going to the gym four times a day, cooking immaculate meals, hiking to Europe in their backyard; so no, I won’t take a break, I can’t take a break, I have to keep up or shut up.

But a funny thing happens when you refuse God’s commands. Those commands, by the way, are not demands, but a vision of how you work best. When they’re not followed, the very core of your humanity can break down. You can probably already feel it: the restlessness, the twitchiness, the constant checking of your phone. 

God knows how we’re made.  He knows that if I don’t take a break today, and tomorrow, and for a long time, that I’ll eventually consume more energy than I can create and my spirit will be crushed.  It won’t be any one thing on my schedule or any one exam or any one person: but the accumulated weight will be too much to bear, and I’ll either melt down or check out.

Continue reading “Jesus Says Take A Break” →