Rest.

Do you feel like you have enough rest? Would you consider yourself “well-rested”? If I’m honest, I’m not sure that I even know what “well-rested” looks like…or feels like.

If rest is something that seems to allude you, something that is either just outside your reach or maybe well beyond your reach, consider this: are you allowing yourself rest? Or do you feel this constant ache to achieve, accomplish, complete, check off the list, finish so much so that you cannot allow yourself to rest?

I was reminded of a scripture verse this week that has always captured my attention and my heart. This verse quiets that track in my head that nags at me to achieve, accomplish, finish and instead reminds me to rest: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Jesus was speaking to a crowd of people that were weary and burdened by the religious rules and legalism of his day. He invited them to come, follow him, and find rest—a rest that they could not find outside of him, a true eternal rest.

In the verse from the book of Matthew, Jesus invites us to come to him to find rest, but did you also know that God commands us to rest? In Exodus 34:21, God spoke to Moses and said, “six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.”

I often find myself too busy to rest. Ever feel that way?