the exhausting struggle to rest

If you've ever gone on vacation, taken a day off, or stayed home sick in high school, you understand that stepping back from work is work in and of itself. To be away on a week-long vacation means that someone else has to step into what I was doing. Someone else needs to know what I know. Missing a day of high school to rest and recover from influenza is a simple trade-in for more stress, meetings with teachers to get caught up, and a heavier load of homework for the days to come. It feels like the entire universe pushes against our desire and need to rest, step away, and stop. No wonder so many people choose to enter into the never ending machine of work, busyness, and productivity. In some ways, it's easier! If our work places make it difficult for us to be successful at resting, why try to rest? If the work-load is heavier when we return, why take a week off? If I'm the only one who can truly do what needs to be done at the level it needs to be done at, why step away?

Like any practice or discipline, rest is something that you can get better at! The more you do it, the easier it becomes. The more you explore every corner of life that rest offers, the more the preparation feel like anticipation. John Mark Comer refers to practicing spiritual disciplines as, "training hard". Woah, Ryan. That sounds like anti-grace! Well, if we equate earning with effort, then you are correct! I love the distinction Dallas Willard makes when he says, "Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone.” When we desire an outcome, we typically put intentionality and fine tuned choices into action. An outcome doesn't just appear out of thin air! If we desire to grow up in every way, to be formed into the image of Christ, and to follow Jesus, then we must train hard! We don't become good at rest by working 60 hours a week. We don't get better at rest by venting about our work load. The work never stops, so we better stop work. In order to stop work well, we must prepare well. In order to prepare well, we must take the first step by consciously choosing to make rest a value.

Okay, let's get real. This may sound exciting or encouraging, but then real life hits you. I have been practicing a weekly Sabbath for only two years and have experienced some deep moments of frustration, failure, depression, and loneliness in the midst of a time that should be bringing me rest and renewal. There are some serious battles you'll fight in your efforts to rest. How silly I am in thinking that it would be any different with a 3 month Sabbatical!

Below is a list of my challenges and inner-battles in preparation to rest from my paid work for 3 months:

1. The IMMENSE amount of work I've had to add on to my current work in order to be gone for 3 months. I've constantly been working for the future as I've been working in the present, and this has inevitably shifted my availability to a time that doesn't even exist.

2. FOMO (fear of missing out). I've been grieving all the things I'll have to miss out on and not get to contribute to.

3. Entertaining questions like, "Am I even needed?", "Will the work be better without me?", "Will people even miss me?"

4. Anticipating the loneliness I will experience. Friends moving, friends working their full-time jobs, my wife working, and the world moving on without me is a very lonely reality. I will be completely available, while the world around me will be unavailable.

5. I feel the weight of the expectation that I need to have a BIG moment of revelation while on Sabbatical. I feel the expectation from others that when I return, I'll need to crank out outcomes, numbers, and success on a larger scale. I feel the fear that my Sabbatical may be more ordinary than extraordinary. And maybe that's okay.

6. Navigating purpose and value outside of doing paid-ministry. Who am I if I'm not preaching? Who am I if I'm not training adults to move teenagers toward Jesus? Who am I if I'm not planning strategy? Who am I if I'm not making decisions on behalf of a congregation and a student ministry team?

7. Confronting prideful thoughts that correlate failures and low momentum to my absence.

8. Acknowledging that it's harder than I thought to hand over something I've built to another (what a silly thought that I even think the student ministry is MINE...sounds like something to be unpacked over the next 3 months). Big Shoutout to Kat and Kendra for stepping into my role and making it theirs! God has equipped you with EVERYTHING you need to be faithful. One Student Ministry is in good hands.

Preparing to rest is hard, but the effort is worth everything that God wants to get done within you as you rest. To rest, is to truly embody an important facet of the Gospel: in my lack of striving and productivity, I am still enough in the embrace of God.

I am not what I do.

I am not the sum of my accomplishments.

I am not the sum of my failures.

I am not my job.

I am a beloved son of God.

That is enough.

Friends, here are a few steps to make rest a reality in your life.

1. Decide to make it a value (and tell some people about it!)

2. Create boundaries around that value (Google, "Rule of Life". It's a wonderful practice to do just this)

3. Accept moments of mess and failure (it's normal!)

4. Learn from others on this topic (I recommend John Mark Comer, Tyler Staton, Dallas Willard, Henry Nouwen, Pete Scazzero, and Rich Villodas)

5. Ritualize your rest time (set it apart, make it special, have a consistent rhythm for it!)

6. Keep practicing (have fun and remember that rest is a GIFT not a BURDEN)

Thanks for reading! As formative as it is for me to process in this way, I pray that God would use my words to move you a little closer toward an unhurried life as you learn to simply be and enjoy life with God.

Peace,

Ryan