I have a compulsive need to feel all things are complete and accomplished before I can ever attempt to rest.

In my life this has meant that I go without rest much, much more than I should.

The thing I had to learn the hard way is that rest is not optional. 

When a lack of rest took it's toll on my body, mind and emotions, I was backed into a corner with no other options. If I wanted to survive, my only option was rest.

Once I accepted that, and trained myself to recognize the truth that rest is for a purpose and far different from just being lazy (which is what I had always subconsciously defined it as) everything changed. It became a priority, as it should have been all along.

I recently finished reading The Rest of God. I can't recommend it enough.

In my life, two truths needed to be acknowledged: 

1) rest is not laziness

2) Jesus is the only source of true rest.

I have no right to a lot of things; my health, my home, my family, my salvation. May as well add rest to the list.

But thank God that God could care less about our rights. What God cares about, and deeply, is our needs. And it's this simple: you and I have an inescapable need for rest. The lie the taskmasters want you to swallow is that you cannot rest until your work's all done, and done better than you're currently doing it. But the truth is, the work's never done, and never done quite right. It's always more than you can finish and less than you hoped for.

So what? Get this straight: The rest of God– the rest God gladly gives so that we might discover that part of God we're missing– is not a reward for finishing. It's not a bonus for work well done.

It's sheer gift. It is a stop-work order in the midst of work that's never complete, never polished. Sabbath is not the break we're allotted at the tail end of completing all our tasks and chores, the fulfillment of all our obligations. It's the rest we take smack-dab in the middle of them, without apology, without guilt, and for no better reason than God told us we could.

-Mark Buchanan 
The Rest of God

My soul finds rest in God alone; My salvation comes from Him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will never be shaken.
Psalm 62:1-2

For more thoughts on rest, visit the Gypsy Mama.

(Confession: I did spend more than five minutes on this post, but only because it took me so long to type the excerpt from the book. That's technically not writing, right?)