Why is rest so hard?

There are regular moments when I feel like no one believes in stopping. Survival of the fittest seems to be the law of the land. Life feels like a maze designed by a stone-faced researcher in a long lab coat  and I am the mouse.

But this is not one of those moments.

This is a moment of rest. It's the weekend after a full week. Ahhhhh

Ever wonder why God commanded the Israelites to rest one day in seven?  We need this. How ironic that the Pharisees created a million rules to govern Sabbath rest? They turned rest itself into work.

So why am I resting now?

Because I am weak. Ironic, isn't it?  

A complex array of challenging issues at work today culminated in a conversation with leaders saying to each other essentially, we have to support each other. We are weak leaders. Moments later, I debriefed with another staffer as we reflected on a 5 1/2 year project that appears to be going up in smoke. We reminded each other that there is goodness in the process. Loving, listening, sharing hard truthes -- these things are never wasted even when the outcome is not what we had hoped. It was still good work.

Yes. The perfect word to end a weak week.

And there is another reason I am resting now.  Last night I set a foolhardy goal.  I am training to run a half marathon, and I want to do it well this time. Last night was my first attempt to run the whole thing, all 13.1 miles of it without ever breaking my stride. I decided to go real slow but try to never stop for any reason.  To keep a long story short, I over did it.  I have been limping ever since.  Last evening I could barely climb the stairs.  So now I am resting because I am weak. 

Maybe that's why God had to command us to observe a day of rest. He knew we wouldn't do it. We wouldn't do it because rest and weakness feel like synonyms.

Most of us are petrified of our own weakness. We run ourselves ragged to avoid that feeling of weakness. We even do lofty things like run marathons when we should be resting.  But God comes for us just like he did 6,000 years ago.  He calls us in the garden at the cool of the day or on the running trail. He writes in stone from the fiery mountain because sometimes a command is the only thing driven people hear. He has to really get our attention. "Rest, regularly, you are too weak to do anything more!"

So, Father, tonight, I embrace my weakness and Your rest.  I will accept reality as it is not as it should be. I bow my bruised body and fall into the rest prepared for me. There is simply nothing better.