Scripture
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:28-29)
Thought
“I’ll show you how to take a real rest..”
Thousands of years ago when Jesus uttered these words he was uncovering truth for the day we’re in. It’s as if he knew the human experience well enough to know that there is a foundational truth for the person in the ancient times, the dark ages, the roaring twenties, and even today.
The truth is - we were designed to need a rest.
A real rest. Not some cheap rest. Discount rest. “Diet” rest. We need the real thing. Real rest.
Study any high performing athlete and you’ll notice they’ve optimized their work patterns and intensity levels to their workouts. They toggle between high intensity, low intensity, and no intensity (rest).
Most amateurs land in a wasted zone of middle intensity. Not high intensity where the gains are made, not low intensity were the recovery kicks in, but this middle zone where boundaries are not being pushed, and where rest and recovery are not really being taken to enhance the training process.
I can’t help but think most leaders live and lead in the middle intensity zone.
Busy-work, frantic, always on, not meaningful work, and not full of rest and recovery.
We can blame our hyper-connected culture. We’ve got access to emails all the time, we’re connected to our phones, the list is endless. But the truth is we have control over all of those things. We can shut our phones off, we can put them in another room, we can create time limits for when apps won’t work.
The issue isn’t external. The issue is internal.
If we are going to continue to transform in our leadership life we must get out of the empty, middle intensity zone. Like the elite athlete we must toggle between high intensity and rest…real rest. We must recognize we’re wasting away in the middle. We must design a better plan. If we’re going to become leaders who last, we must run hard and enjoy real rest. We must know when to push, and when to shut it off and rest.
As we end the year 2021, I hope the next few weeks can be an opportunity for you to create real rest rhythms for 2022.
Don’t settle for cheap rest. Lean into real rest.
Call to Action
Don’t coast to the end of 2021. Head over to staythecourseleaders.com/book and start your transformational journey. Tap into hours of free video content and guided reflection questions. Also listen to our podcast series around the principles of leaders who last!