Active Rest

I'm in week 3 of an exercise program and have learned a lot about a concept called "Active Rest". Basically, Active Rest means that you do something other than lay on the couch like a slug, but you don't have to engage in strenuous activity, raise your heart rate, or otherwise do anything that appears like a workout. A nice walk in the neighborhood, cleaning house, taking the stairs instead of the elevator - all these count as "Active Rest" in my exercise plan.

I've found more than one analogy to my spiritual life in my renewed effort to lose weight and pursue total body health. You'll probably hear more on that to come ... but maybe not. Because after a very full, intense year which capped off a solidly busy decade, God is calling me to a season of Active Rest. And I'm so grateful.

As I began to pray near the end of my major project and to wonder what God had for me next, I pulled out my list of ministry dreams and things on my heart. I wondered if now would be the time to pursue one of those items. I even had a very specific plan for one particular interest. As I prayed over it all, I sensed God whisper something very different to me.

Rest.

At first it was just a thought ... something I could easily have shrugged off as one too many late nights talking. After learning so much about the unfinished work of missions, it would have been so easy to think that was the voice of the enemy or my flesh, and to justify a continued full court press.

Rest.

As I continued to dialogue with God, I found myself drawn to the idea. I began wondering, then hoping He was calling me to rest. I wondered how long it would be. A weekend? A week? Maybe even a month?

A season of rest, restoration, reflection, refreshment, and relationship.


The more I prayed, the more specific He became. And the more I sought confirmation, the more He brought to mind the past decade. Let me share a bit of my story because I want to encourage you in the reality that God takes us through seasons - and every year doesn't look like the one before it.



After I started walking with the Lord, He and I spent about 3-4 years getting a lot of things straight (that would be Him, straightening ME out, just for the record). Once I unlearned a lot of wrong things I'd thought all my life and developed some consistency in my relationship with Him, He began revealing spiritual gifts to me and opening doors of service. That season was capped off with a devotional that I wrote in 1999 which helped me process my journey to that point.


Then 10 years ago, during 2000, God first opened a door for me to teach weekly. First my husband and I together taught couples, then I taught a women's group. I loved every minute of it. In 2002 when my step-daughter came to live with us, God answered my prayer to give me a mother's love for her by making her the child of my heart. He also asked me to lay down the women's group, which I gladly did. Through those parenting years, I tried to answer His call to minister to the one with His love. He alone is the judge of that effort.


As that season ended in 2005 with her graduation from high school (though of course, parenting doesn't end as you all know very well), God opened a door for me to pursue a Master's degree in Global Civilization. I could hardly believe it at first ... that God would actually call me to study and read. Wow, a bookworm's dream. He did it in the way He knew I would receive it the best ... from my husband. And Bob went on to be my biggest cheerleader and strongest supporter. Without his encouragement when I wondered if I should continue, and without the prayer support from friends and family on my prayer team, I don't think I could have made it. This program has been an estimated 1600 hours of labor over 4 1/2 years ... with almost 20% of the entire program completed during the past 4 months. But it has been so worth it. I have learned so much about God and His kingdom purposes.


During the first part of my "school season" my husband and I were SO privileged to be caretakers for my mother-in-law in her last years. Such a blessing ... I learned so much during that time. I've written about her legacy on this blog previously, so I won't repeat the details here except to say that caretaking, while challenging, was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.


Over the past 8 years since I obeyed God and dropped the women's group from my plate, He has opened lots of ministry doors ... teaching, writing, helping ... in so many ways He has kept fanning into flames the gifts He's given me. But those "big 3" - parenting, caretaking, and school - have been near the top of my list of priorities all along during their respective seasons. They have been the things that I fit everything else around, after God and my husband and, of course, my job.


Now, though, for the first time since I was newly walking with Him, God is asking me not to be busy. That doesn't mean I'll do nothing, of course - that's where the Active Rest concept becomes helpful. Of course I'll continue to work, to fulfill my roles as a wife and parent and daughter and sister and friend, to care for the home God has given us, to be part of the community at church. There will be times we host and practice hospitality together; times when God gives me something to write and I blog; opportunities to encourage others; occasions when I substitute teach for Bible study. But I won't be going at a hectic pace. I won't be a slug on the couch, but I won't be trying to see how far I can pedal in half an hour either.

As I've sought God for clarification, He has spoken two additional words to my heart so far: healthy and balance. He wants me to be as healthy as possible physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally. He wants me to have some balance restored to life ... balance that was lost at times over the past decade. Most of all, He wants me to pursue HIM with a passion.

I'm so happy because He is being proactive in this ... calling me to this season before I drift away from my first love (that would be HIM). I've been around enough to know that it's easier to be healthy if you have a good starting place. While people become healthy all the time after cancer or a heart attack, it's much harder than if they had been healthy before the problem struck. Preventing weight gain is easier than losing weight. And so on...you get the point.

I don't know everything that this season will hold. I don't know how long it will last. I told God yesterday that I sure hope it lasts a while. I'm realizing more and more how much I need it. The first day of this season of rest, Dec. 30, I was anxious and tearful. I realized that I was putting pressure on myself to get everything done in one day that I'd put off during the most intense phase of my final project for school. I was trying to get every errand done AND clean house AND blog AND begin a season of rest. HA! What an irony ... but how much it showed this Martha that I really need a Mary season.

So, I enter it with gladness. I'll blog as God puts things on my heart, but don't worry if you don't hear from me for days or even weeks at a time. You'll know where to find me ... right over there by the chair, sitting at His feet.