Scripture

“By the seventh day God had finished his work…”

Thought

I thought I knew exactly what I needed. I needed a vacation. Time away from the office, time for leisure, time working on some passion projects. I had it all planned out, I knew exactly what I needed from my time off “get right.”

But then the week started! I didn’t have my normal vigor, with each passing hour I missed another planned activity, the devotional… the workout… the reading… the mediation… and on and on.

After a couple of days my frustration was mounting, but I was aware enough to realize there was a lesson to be learned here. So, finally after 6 days I opened my bible and God led me to Genesis.

My attention was directed to chapter 2 where He hi-lights the fact that He rested after He FINISHED his work. I left with 3 takeaways.

1. If God has time to rest, I do too

2. If God’s work has a definitive start and end point, mine should too

3. Rest is rest, not just different work

During that week, God made it very clear to me that I was lacking margin in my life and that I need to be more intentional about designing my rest into my lifestyle. For me, this will require:

1. To better define my work so I know when it’s finished and time to rest

2. To schedule rest periods in advance so I know how long I have to finish my work

3. To actually rest during those times I have scheduled to rest

It’s ridiculous to think I need to be reminded of this, but lifestyle design is a dynamic process. Perhaps you’ve been struggling with the same dynamic process.

It’s very likely that the design that got you here may no longer be adequate to keep you here on your transformational path. You’ve changed roles, you’ve added responsibilities, you may have changed careers, and there are countless other variables that have changed your circumstances.

As dynamic as it is, we must stay on the transformational path and prepare a better design.

What do you need to do to finish your work and lean into rest?