“You’re a lazy so and so and really inefficient”. Ironically these words, which so forcefully imprinted myself on my mind, came as I pruned a bush in the garden after a day cleaning the house, organising my admin, doing the washing and going on a 12km run before breakfast 🏃♂️
What lies, which appear so true in the emotion of the moment, impact you? And where do they come from? My parents, my Mum in particular, found it hard to stop and relax. What I saw in her I see in me. And as a Christian, I believe there is also an enemy of our souls.
The idea of sabbath, or a weekly time of rest, is God given in order to get us to stop judging our lives primarily by our productivity. The world will still keep turning without my help! Burn out, mentally and physically, does me, you, our families and workplaces no favours. Whether the pressure is internal or external, we need a rhythm of rest which I’m trying to learn. So this afternoon my daughter and I went to the garden centre then to the beach ⛱ and paddled. And I’m writing this as the bees buzz among the chives. Hopefully I will be better for it!
Some believers I know via Facebook from Pakistan send me Happy Sunday greetings. A number of them work alongside indebted labourers in the brickfields. Essentially slaves with generational debts they can’t pay off, young children often work with their parents in terrible conditions. A day is something very special; rest a treasure for exhausted often broken bodies. However tough our jobs are, they are nothing like this.
Treasure your rest, root out the lies your mind tells you and remember those in a far worse situation than us. Have a good week 😀
Adrian@60 