As a Type A personality, I learned to prioritize true rest by disconnecting from distractions like social media, investing in community, getting creative, and maintaining gratitude, ultimately finding peace and rejuvenation in aligning my life with God's example of rest.
I'm a type A personality. I want to get things done, and I like being busy. I enjoy working a full day and knowing that when I am done for the week, I can reflect on it and see that I've done a good job and used my time wisely. However, I am physically and mentally exhausted at the end of the week because I often fill my schedule with many things. Instead of engaging with nature, going to God, or doing something worthwhile, I usually take the easy way out.
I binge-watch television, look on my phone and social media, and long for connection and community. However, the things that recharge my batteries and help me truly rest are things that I'm not engaging in. Instead, I go for a counterfeit rest of binge-watching television, online shopping, or eating junk food. Although the world often accepts these counterfeit coping mechanisms, they don't help me find my rest in God.
I read books and researched rest, which I found was more than simply napping. It's also more than taking a week's vacation. Although both contribute to my overall health and well-being, they only address one area of my health that needs to rest, and Jesus indeed rested. He worked from a place of rest. He didn't work himself to death, only to find that he was exhausted.
This is partly because he kept connecting to his father, didn't let his work become his identity, and did only what he saw his father doing. When he could separate his worth from his work, he could serve the Lord better and work from a place of rest. In the same way, I needed to learn how to do that. I needed to stop finding my worth and checking off A to-do list and instead allow the Lord to speak into my work so that I could come from a place of rest. Here's how I learned to rest truly:
I Took Breaks from Social Media
I always knew I was exhausted when, while completing a task, I had to pick up my phone and look at it. This was like a mental break that I was taking. It didn't seem like much then, but I realized the more I did it, the more distracted I became.
I was wasting precious minutes looking at social media feeds and ads online and wasting time with things I didn't need. However, I could better use my time if I genuinely worked the time I had set to do the work.
Then, when I could take a break, I could rest from my activities. This would help me achieve not only physical but also mental and emotional rest. I wasn't going to my phone to find connection and community because my mind was starving for that. Instead, I worked hard when I had a free day. But when the day had a lot of things in it, I took the time to run errands, attend appointments, and make time for friends.
When I stopped chasing my worth and value in an 8-hour workday, I learned that my body thanked me. During a recent doctor's appointment, she commented that I needed to watch my stress because some blood work levels returned higher than usual. She said this was because my body was more stressed than I realized.
Even though I couldn't feel the stress, my body was stressed. I was putting more on myself than I should have, but this is not God's intention for my life. Instead, he wants me to treat my body well as the temple it was intended to be. When I can treat my body as a temple and live well, I can serve the Lord in many capacities.
I Invested in the Community
I made time to meet with and sit down and chat with friends, both new and old. I could invest not only in relationships from the past but also in new friendships I had made at a new church I was attending. Those conversations with friends rejuvenated me well. These good, godly Christian women could speak into my life, challenge me, and encourage me. Those are the types of things that gave life to my soul.
We know we are not alone when we surround ourselves with good people. Not only can we build trust, but we also were able to share our most profound issues, and no one will be there to support us.
But community takes work. We can't expect to have friends and have good, healthy relationships if we never spend time with the people we love. Everyone has enough hours in the day to invest in these relationships. But often, we work ourselves to the point where we can't spend extra energy investing in people.
It is easy to sit on the couch and do the easy thing by watching something passive rather than doing something proactive in our lives. As I made time for community, I never missed the time I could have been watching television or online shopping.
I Got Creative
I'm not good at sports, but I am good at some crafts. Crafts can be relaxing if they help me feel like I can complete a task. Sometimes, a leisurely activity is to do adult coloring. Adult coloring helps quite a bit because it brings me to my childhood and relaxes me as I choose which color I want it to be. It helps me focus my mind and not worry about my problems. Practicing this concept of mindfulness does help, as God tells us not to worry about anything.
When I focus my mind on worry, I spend a lot of extra mental and emotional energy. When I trust God, my burden is light, just as God promised. Sometimes, I need a distraction, and adult coloring is an excellent way to remember the completed task and make something that makes the world feel better.
I Kept a Grateful Attitude
Much of life is about attitude. Everyone in life has trials. But it is what we do with those trials that matter. When I choose to keep an attitude of gratitude and thank God for all the blessings he has given me in this life, it is easier for me to keep a proper perspective. However, when I allow my mind to be cluttered with toxic worry, fear, and discontentment, I never fully rest my body. I find myself awake at night, wondering about how everything's going to happen.
Sometimes, fear is a way for me to control my situation. If I overthink it, make a plan in my life, and think about all the past scenarios and worst scenarios, then it's as if I'm not being disappointed. However, blessings keep me focused on what God is doing, not what he will or hasn't done.
God is a good God. He sent his son Jesus to mirror the example of how we should live our lives. Jesus always came from a place of rest. People often got mad at him when he rested when they felt he should be doing something. Jesus did not bow to pressure. Instead, he knew who he was.
He knew his identity and his father, and he worked from a place where he wasn't mentally, physically, or emotionally exhausted. This prepared him for the many trials he would face at the end of his life. We can all take Jesus as an example by practicing proper rest.
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