Nancy Reece

Leading from a reservoir of calm

rest

God Is with Me

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Six months into starting my own business, the dread of having to sell my services, the lack of consistent income, and a feeling of incompetence had me focusing on my fears. I needed a place where I could pour out my fears to the Lord and listen. God seemed far away.

Retreating to Nature

Penuel Ridge Retreat Center provided that place to retreat to nature, providing time and space to stop the swirling in my mind. God had often spoken to me through his creation and I was trusting He would again. I began slowing down and watching birds feed. I didn’t realize how tired I was until I woke a couple of hours later from a deep nap. After spending the evening reading, reflecting, and journaling, the swirling fears in my mind were slowly being replaced by tiny moments of peace. If He provides for the birds, how much more would He for me? God was near.

Listening to God

The next morning, ready to listen to God, I explored the High Ridge Trail. The path was covered in brown leaves, broken twigs and branches, the aftermath of a cold winter. The trail was steep, and my lungs  strained. Halfway up, a small bench appeared. As I rested, I noticed a sea of spring beauties, tiny flowers of pink, shining amidst the dead leaves of winter. They reminded me that He calls us to rest and to wait patiently for Him. I journaled about how starting a business is full of strenuous climbs and often feels like a cold winter. Just as I couldn’t climb that mountain without rest, Jesus was reminding me I can’t fight my daily battles without times of quiet and rest each day.

At the top of the ridge, a yellow butterfly rested on the path.  As I approached, it flew on ahead and landed.  Over and over, it led me down the path, as if the Holy Spirit was leading me. When it alighted, I would sit and listen.  I journaled that God would be with me as my business progressed. He would make known to me the path of life. Just as there was joy in following the butterfly, in His presence is abundant joy.   

Choosing Quiet

Descending down the other side of the ridge, I saw a waterfall – living water, refreshing my soul. After hiking, I spent several hours in quiet, realizing my fears had been washed away as I talked with Jesus, my living water. God is with me. He always is.  

You will show me the path that leads to life; your presence fills me with joy and brings me pleasure forever.  Psalm 16:11

Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for him. Psalm 37:7

“If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.” John 4:10

Choosing True Rest

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In January 2012, I returned from a 30-day sabbatical and 1400 emails had accumulated on my computer. I deleted them all with the touch of a key – never reading one of them. It felt great!  

2011 had been a tough year. The year was marked by the death of my father and my mother’s ravaging of dementia. And the difficulties continued.  While working with a client, I unexpectedly found myself in the path of Hurricane Sandy. In the midst of the storm, I heard the Lord tell me to take a time of rest. I realized that the past year had been a lot like a hurricane. His gentle love and wisdom were guiding me.  

After making the decision to take a break, I resolved not to read my email while on sabbatical and to delete it unread when I returned. It was important to communicate clearly to my clients that I would not be answering email or phone, nor would I be reading any email that came in while I was gone. In the past, I would review email while on vacation because I didn’t want to be overwhelmed by it later. I knew my myself well enough to know that if I didn’t make a commitment to deleting those emails unread, I would cheat!  And cheating would have diminished the true rest I was seeking. 

I returned from a truly restful sabbatical. The response from my clients was overwhelmingly positive when they realized I had actually deleted the unread emails. God gave me the courage and determination to choose real rest and it was a catalyst for others to do so as well. His gentle love and wisdom will give you the same courage and determination to choose true rest.

Job 11:18  Having hope will give you courage. You will be protected and will rest in safety.

Psalm 23:2-3 He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength.

Discovering the Treasure of Rest

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the treasure of rest

I frequently talk with people about rest and what that looks like in their life, In our conversation,   they get a far off look in their eyes, and I sense a yearning to slow down and be quiet. In our 24/7 world, we so often ignore the signs and symptoms of our need for rest.  If we don’t discover the treasure of rest, our lives end up overwhelmed, overworked, burned out, frustrated and discouraged. 

Defining Rest

You probably have several things you consider to be rest, but the core of all rest is solitude, stillness, and silence.  Being alone with God in a place that has no distractions, withdrawing from the storm of life to a place where you cease striving, or refraining from creating noise or from speaking, so that you can hear the whisper of God are all opportunities for rest. Rest can also be a great nap! 

Recognizing the Value of Rest

Jesus told the story of the man who was willing to trade all he had for a pearl of great value.(Mat 13:44-45) The allegory taught that the Kingdom of God was a treasure, but that few people would recognize its value and live accordingly.  Discovering the treasure wasn’t about what he had to give up, it was about what he gained. Have you discovered the treasure of rest?  What are you trading rest for?  

  • If I just keep going, I can make more money, get more done, etc. 
  • If I just do one more thing, then I can rest…
  • If I just had more time, then ….

The man who purchased the pearl knew he gained far more than he gave up.  What do you gain when you rest?   God does things in the heart of a leader that only get done in quiet.  If you fail to rest, you miss out on all that God has for you. It’s in solitude , silence, and stillness that we hear some of God’s most important messages for us and we learn just how much He loves us.    What have you gained from a recent time of rest? Here are just a few of the things you might gain:

  • communion with God (Rev 3:20)
  • love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:22)
  • your weakness becomes a platform for His strength (2 Cor 12:9)
  • freedom (2 Cor 3:17)
  • calm in the midst of the storms of life(Mat 8:26), 
  • joy that overflows (Psalm 84:12) and 
  • your soul is restored (Psalms 23:3).

Practical Steps to Help You Choose Rest

  1. Focus on what you gain when you rest.  Make a list. (My soul finds rest in God alone… Psalm 62:1 (NIV 1984). Then compare the blessings you’ve listed to the overwhelmed world you currently experience.  
  2. Choose what’s most important – Answer this question, “What’s most important in my life for me and my family?”  Make a list of the things you spend time doing.  Do they align with what’s most important in your life? Do they honor God?  Knowing what’s most important helps you know when to say yes.
  3. Count the cost of saying yes.  When you say yes to something someone asks you to do, you are actually saying no to something else.  When asked, thank them for asking and then let them know you will pray about it. This gives you time to lay the request before our Lord and to carefully consider what you should do. It will also keep you from saying yes under the pressure of the moment. Ask yourself how you’ll feel when the time comes to do what they’ve asked.  Will you look forward to it, or will you regret having said yes?  What will you not be able to do because you said yes? 

Rest is a treasure waiting to be discovered. God rested on the seventh day. When do you rest?

Real Rest. Really?

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a guest blog by Teresa Moon

Laughter. The sound emanated from the mobile phone speaker, filling my office. This was the eighth phone conversation and the eighth response of incredulous laughter. Though I hadn’t expected it, I knew I had earned this response to my proposal.

I was proposing an organization-wide Rest and Renewal study. I called strategic team-leaders in my organization to pitch the project and to enlist their support. My objective: to complete the required research for my last doctoral course on the assigned topic, “Rest and Renewal,” and, of course, for my team to experience renewal in the process. 

My colleagues did not mean to insult me. They just didn’t see me as a “rest-and-renewal” kind of leader. I couldn’t blame them; I didn’t either. I was the responsible party, setting the break-neck tempo for my fast-paced, no-time-for-a-break, short-staffed, under-funded organizational culture. With each conversation, I wanted even more desperately for it to be different. 

I listened as my colleagues echoed many of my own excuses and arguments when challenged with the need for rest. “When we get through this launch…” “After the big event…” “When the kids go back to school…” “When the kids get out of school…” “When there’s more money…” “When I have more help…” The list is always as creative as it is long.

A growing body of research illustrates my fellow leaders and I were not unique. Studies suggest more than 50% of pastors and an even greater percentage of ministry family members experience burnout. “Compassion fatigue,” the result of chronic stress, is growing among mission and ministry leaders and workers. The literature links burnout, cynicism, disengagement, and compromise to the ignoring of our need for rest. 

So, why do we fight against our God-designed need for rest? We are familiar with his invitation: “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Our heads know his divine rest is accompanied by perfect peace. Yet both elude us. 

In my journey, I came to a significant realization: rest is about trust. When I follow the voices in my head calling me to work longer, harder, and faster, I am trusting myself. When I deny my need for sleep, off-the-grid times, Sabbath rest, and creative outlets, I am placing my trust in my own efforts. The more fatigued I become, the less compassionate I am. But when I trust my Creator, I trust His design. We were designed to flourish in rest. Rest is an act of trust. 

A dozen unrested, overwhelmed, and stressed-out colleagues joined me in my organization’s “Leadership Rest and Renewal Project.” We practiced and shared our personal insights about meditation and reflection, appreciation and affirmation. We kept sleep journals, experimented with 5-minute breaks, shared Sabbath-keeping rituals, and tried on new habits. We compared notes and discussed what did and did not work. We re-prioritized, re-focused, and ultimately found ourselves –  individually and collectively – renewed. 

My team made an important discovery: we’re better together. When we pursued rest together, we leaned on each other to help us make courageous decisions to practice real rest. We had attempted restingfromourwork. We were now beginning to work from our rest.We moved from an unhealthy habit and culture to a healthier one. It felt like Paul’s letter to the church in Rome had come to life for us: our minds were renewed and our behaviors transformed (Romans 12:2). 

I still talk about naps a lot more than I take them. I also hesitate to tell people the reason I’m not attending their meeting or function is that I need rest. But I do have a new outlook. I now value real rest. And my teammates no longer laugh at me for talking about it. 

When I first approached them with the project, God had been at work, planting in my teammates seeds of desire for real rest and renewal. As only the Divine can do, in the middle of our busiest season of organizational life, God “made [us] lie down in green pastures” and restored our individual and organizational souls (Ps. 23:2-3). The to-do lists have not disappeared. Many of us still struggle to prioritize rest. Yet, in the middle of near chaos, God loves me and, together with my co-laborers, delights in bringing me to “still waters.”

Dr. Teresa Moon, founding President and CEO of the Institute for Cultural Communicators, is an internationally-recognized seminar speaker, education consultant, author, and leadership coach. Each year, she travels globally equipping students, teachers, and parents to become “cultural communicators,” transforming ordinary students into extraordinary communicators and authentic leaders.  You can follow her blog here: http://teresamoon.org/real-rest-really

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How to Turn Stress into Rest

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“The absence of quiet in a man or woman’s  life leads to a state of soul insanity.” -Dan Webster

Since integrity is doing what you say you will do, and because  my core value is faith, I believe in the value of rest and quiet.  So in our home, Sunday is a protected day of rest.  I don’t fire up the computer from work and check email or work on projects no matter how overwhelmed I may feel. [Read more…] about How to Turn Stress into Rest