Pause and Rest

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I trust that you and yours had a special day yesterday. And as the year draws to a close, I want to talk to you about pressing pause and resting.

Our world is obsessed with videos. YouTube has 2.7 billion monthly active users! And of course, much of it is good and useful, and I’ve benefitted much from YouTube as a creator. Yet even YouTube themselves launched a campaign in 2022 called Hit Pause, encouraging people to step back and think for themselves instead of just consuming more and more content.

The Divine Pattern

Of course, it wasn’t YouTube that came up with this idea. God Himself hit pause, as we read in Genesis 2: "By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done."

And then in Exodus God says "Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed." (Exodus 23:12)

God looks at us at the end of a weary week and He says: hit pause. Rest and be refreshed! And I believe He looks at us at the end of a weary year and says: hit pause. Rest and be refreshed!

When Souls Need Rest

Author Gordon MacDonald tells a story of a nineteenth-century explorer who hired a group of rural African villagers to help him explore unmapped portions of Africa. On the first three days, they moved quickly and were ahead of schedule. But on the fourth day, the explorer woke up to find no one moving. When he asked why, he was told they had decided they'd been moving much too fast and that it was time to stop and let their souls catch up with their bodies.

This is profound. They hit pause, so that their souls could catch up with their bodies. How did you do this year? Did your body outrun your soul? Were you so busy, so driven, so on the go that you need to hit pause now and let your soul catch up with your body?

Making Rest a Priority

Our world is constantly pushing us to go faster and work longer. Our instant communication world means we are rarely disconnected from our work lives. God says to us hit pause. Rest and be refreshed. Don't just keep working. Don't just keep doing more. Take a break. Catch up with yourself. There's more to life than efficiency and earning.

As 2024 winds down, friends, take time to sleep a little later, watch a good movie, read a book, go for a walk, or spend time with loved ones. Take time for things you normally don't have time for. Relish in the beauty of God's gifts that aren't connected to work. Hit pause on your regular life and let your soul catch up with your body, before you the New Year begins.