“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1
When writing these devotionals, I’m sometimes directing them at myself. This is one of those times. I happen to be in a season of life that is very busy with pressures from different directions and many decisions to be made. That causes me to feel as if the burdens coming at me from different places are pressing me down. At the same time, I’m being pulled in just as many different directions. This season of life is not about bad or difficult situations. It’s just very busy in a lot of different ways. Because of this, I’ve been experiencing long days at my job, and long days of work outside of the office.
As I thought of this feeling of being both pushed and pulled, of falling into bed exhausted each night but not able to sleep and waking each morning already overwhelmed by the day ahead, I realized the importance of what this verse from Ecclesiastes is saying by what it doesn’t say. God’s word says there is a time and season for everything. So there is a time for me to work at my job. That means there is also a time when I should not be working at my job. There is a time for me to think about the decisions to be made. That means there is also a time when I should not be thinking about those decisions. Times of rest that have been missing from my day-to-day life. There seems to be little, if any, balance in my life and in my schedule.
When I talk about rest, I don’t mean just being a couch potato for a time. True rest is much deeper than physically resting. In fact, sometimes our most restful times are found in physical activity. I recently “rested” by enjoying the beauty of God’s creation of each little, beautiful, amazing snowflake as I cleaned off the drive. True rest is found by slowing down our brains enough to be able to hear what God is saying to us. He may be trying to give us an answer to a question we have. Perhaps He is showing us an area of our life that needs to change. Or maybe He just wants to remind us of how much He loves us. When we are allowing the things of this world to block the voice of God, we are choosing to keep ourselves from the peace that can only come from God.
Are you in a season of busy-ness? How do we slow our minds enough to be able to rest in the midst of all the pushing and pulling that’s going on in our lives? I’m not sure I have a good answer to that. I’ve found a few things that have helped. I’m still trying to convince myself that it’s okay to leave some things undone. That’s a hard one for me! Another is to find creative ways to spend time in God’s word. For example, I’ve started listening to an audio Bible on my drive home from work. While that’s not a replacement for taking the time to dig in and meditate on God’s word, it does help quiet my brain from the day that has just passed. Something else I need to do is to be more intentional about remembering to give thanks for the many blessings of God. Maybe these ideas will help you or you may have other ideas or practices that will help you determine what time and season you are in. That will also help you know what time and season you are not in. And that knowledge will create space for the peace of God in your life.