Archives For Rest

During my childhood summers in Ontario, I’d bolt out of bed and check the red line on the thermometer outside the kitchen window, hoping it had crawled high enough for shorts. Summers were an endless glory of rolling down hills, jumping through sprinklers, and sucking on blue Mr. Freezies. Now, I’m more likely to start the morning by burying my face in the pillow, hoping to postpone the day’s busyness for a couple minutes longer.

 

One of the sad realizations of adulthood is that work days crowd July and August like ants swarming a scoop of ice cream on the ground. If we aren’t careful, we can spend ten months of the year waiting for summer to come, just to keep up our hectic schedules, blink twice, and watch the geese fly south. So, here are a few tips for savoring summer, even if you have to work overtime while the boss is on vacation. 

 

Photo 1464081277020 421d61b8607b

Pause

 

Summer is about slowing down, giving yourself permission to sit on the deck and feel the day slip into a bath-warm night. You don’t have to take a week off work to slow down, you just need to be strategic. Here are a few tricks for shifting into a more relaxing gear Continue Reading…

Do you ever feel like your life is stuck on mile 20 of a marathon? You just want to crumple on the asphalt and take a nap, but the mountain of Xray reports (or diapers or bills) refuses to budge. So, you push yourself on for another week, only to find yourself still at mile 20 and the finish line nowhere in sight. 

 

Life is busy for everyone I know, and for most of us it’s hard too. In different ways and for different reasons, we find ourselves in the middle of a marathon, physically or emotionally tired, spiritually drained as we sprint past Jesus to meet the next deadline or never-ending-day of mind-numbing sameness. Sometimes, we sense Jesus running alongside, offering us gatorade and telling us to pace ourselves, but we’ve been running for a long time and we’re exhausted. Maybe it’s time for a rest. 

 

Converse fieldsPhoto courtesy of Ilham Rahmansyah via unsplash.com

 

God worked for six days and rested on the seventh. This is one of the first things the Bible teaches us about God, the God in whose image we’re made. But, we don’t have time to rest like God, we’ve got too much to do. This intoxication with busyness, though, wasn’t always the norm for God’s people Continue Reading…

Tip #1: Do something unproductive, and enjoy it.

 

We’re adults now, which means we have jobs. And, unless we have the good fortune of being artists, our workplaces can suck us into the black hole of productivity. If we’re not careful, the work week (whether it comes packaged in forty, sixty, or eighty hours) can morph us into human doers—people who compulsively check our schedules while gulping down cereal and who send work emails from the bathroom at night

 

Photo 1431949662802 397529a8a873Photo courtesy of Sander Smeekes via unsplash.com

 

Lessons from the Other Half

 

The Doctrine of Productivity affects us all, but our married friends have an advantage. They go home to human beings that require them to be unproductive (a.k.a. spouses). 

 

Just think about it. If married people want to stay married, they have to invest time (and plenty of it) in rather non-productive behaviors. They have to leave work to get home for dinner. Their spouses make them put down their phones and have real conversations. They go on date nights. And, then there’s sex—which, considering the number of kids most couples have, is rather unproductive Continue Reading…