Rest

Hello from Urbana 12. There are so many things to say and I will get to them when I come home.

But for now I want to talk about rest. Did you ever notice how difficult to rest it is? Especially in ministry. We are always going, doing, loving, taking care of constant flow of demands, needs, and problems. With so many people around us that are in great need of our love, resources, and to hear the news of the kingdom how can we ever justify sleeping let alone resting. We can almost never say "no" to things for the mission is too great.

But if we do not take care of our own souls we will burn out, become bitter, and resent the very passion God implanted in us to begin with. For even Jesus rested. Multiple times in scripture it said Jesus went to a quiet place to pray. But what about the hungry, the poor, the sick, the lame, the hurting, and those who need you Jesus? How will your resting help them?

I believe Jesus knew that he needed space to rest and be with his father otherwise his ministry would suffer. Otherwise he would burn out. Rest is crucial to ministry for it is crucial to our soul. And that often means we must say no to something.

Tonight at Urbana they were doing amazing join-in session - building 32,000 AIDS caregiver kits for Swaziland. What a way to practically serve others at this conference. But an hour before it started, I was exhausted - tired and impatient. My soul was being stretched to its limit but how could I say to no to helping those in greater need than my own. Wasn't this just my own weakness I needed to overcome? Power through? Ignore it?

No. Not this time. God called me to pull away, to retreat, to say no. "Let someone else build a kit - there are 16,000 people who can do it too you know. You need rest for you soul or your ministry will suffer." So perhaps I missed a great opportunity to be a part of something amazing. But perhaps by resting in God's presence alone, I was given the strength to keep pressing on - to see with new eyes and have a continual soft heart.

Because sometimes it is just as important to pull away and rest as it is to jump up and act.