Media is always promoting something you can buy or do to help you rest. Ranging from upright activities such as good-natured movies, interesting books, and healthy exercise to dangerous self-medication with drugs and other forms of bodily harm, there are many promoted solutions from the world for resting an exhausted body. So, out of the ones that are seemingly benign, how can you discern what will really rejuvenate your body for the next day’s docket? And what can you learn from Scripture about God’s intentions when it comes to resting your body?

Customize Your Rest

Truth

The Lord skillfully and wonderfully made your one-of-a-kind body designed and preserved for a certain amount of work and a certain amount of rest. (Psalm 121:8, 139:13-16)

Practical Application Ideas

• Learn how to articulate and schedule what works for you and what doesn’t. For example, doing stretches invigorates some bodies and calms others. Or, some of you have an injury, illness or current health challenge such as post-baby recovery or muscle rehabilitation that requires careful attention.
• When President Theodore Roosevelt was a sickly child, his dad once said to him, “You have the mind, but not the body. You must make your body.” Perhaps Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. knew of Paul’s example of disciplining the body and bringing it into subjection for good service. Don’t hesitate to “make your body” do the work it needs to do to support your God-given purpose. (1 Corinthians 9:27).
• Create a plan to protect and strengthen your body from absorbing too much of the stress that your life brings.

Watch out for Idolatry

Truth

A morally neutral activity to rest or exercise your body may or may not become idolatrous for you, depending on how much you count on it and what results it brings you. (Psalm 115:4-8, Habakkuk 2:18-20, Zechariah 10:2)

Practical Application Ideas

• Evaluate the times of rest you have with a screen. Are your devices and apps making you more like them (demanding and short on concentration); or serving you as an instrument in your journey to becoming more like Christ (kind, truthful, and longsuffering)?
• Make sure your good exercise is actually good exercise. Do you tend to be obsessive and inflexible when it comes to your workouts? Are you experiencing unnecessary injury or lack of true benefits?

Steward your Sleep

Truth

The Lord sustains you on much sleep or little; and wants to be the Keeper of the amount He has provided for you. (Psalms 3 & 4)

Practical Application Ideas

• Be as responsible about your sleep as you are about your job. Know the proper amount allocated to you. Make good decisions that lead up to sleep. Pray about what decisions you should choose around sleep and obey according to the Lord’s leading.
• Don’t fret when you are missing sleep. Some seasons are just harder for getting sleep. Ask and trust the Lord to sustain you on the amount you received, and when appropriate, to help you recover it later.
• Consider the value of being still and calm in your body and how that can hold you over until sleep comes.

Let your Body be Ministered to from Above

Truth

Wearied and hungry, Elijah and Jesus both needed food, water, and rest and the angels of heaven brought it to them. (1 Kings 19:5-9, Matthew 4:11)

Practical Application Ideas

• View eating, grocery shopping, cooking, meal planning, etc. not as chores or for appeasing cravings, but as applying the holy art of domesticity in order to minister to your body and to care for the bodies of others. Take this higher view of the basics to help you remember your body has limits and God provides these resources just when you need them.

• Be on guard against selfishness when it comes to fueling and resting your body. Receive nourishment, but don’t let it become excessive. The point of recharging is to return to the next day’s service ready to serve God, fulfill your purpose, and love those He has placed in your life.

More to Come about Rest

Thoughts and feelings can take a real toll on the body (stomach and headaches, muscle tension, etc.). In upcoming articles, you’ll find encouragement in how to find rest for your mind and heart which will also give rest to your body.

Prayer & Blessing

“For by You I can run against a troop, by my God, I can leap over a wall…It is God who arms me with strength…He makes my feet like the feet of deer…” (Psalm 18:29, 31-33)