Today’s message ironically is about taking it easy, slowing it down, stopping for a moment and taking a breath. As I am currently in the midst of finals and being an RA at the end of the year, so that means preparing myself and a whole floor of college students to move out. Getting plane tickets and storages. Trying to sleep, which I have not do much of the past two days, in the last 48 hour I’ve slept for 8 of them. It is hard for me to sit down at the moment, everything is so crazy, trying to make sure I stay on top of everything as much as possible. With all this going on I find myself falling apart, losing it.
Genesis 2:2-3
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day, he rested from all his work.
Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Mark 2:27
Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Exodus 34:21
"You shall work six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during plowing time and harvest, you shall rest.
John 4:3-6
So he left Judea and returned to Galilee. He had to go through Samaria on the way. Eventually, he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime.
Mark 4:38
Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, "Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?"
Sometimes we can get so caught in everything we are doing and things we need to do that we sometimes forget to take care of ourselves. We forget that sometimes we have to give ourselves a little TLC. There is nothing wrong with sitting down and resting, especially after a lot of hard work.
Our generation gets a lot of slack for being lazy but when it is time to work we are probably the hardest workers in the room. Sometimes we can work a little too hard, and overwork ourselves, and we don’t want to do that. We have to take care of the body God has given we cannot run it into the ground. We have to recuperate and rest when it’s needed.
I’ll take myself for an example, beware I am about to talk a lot about acting so bear with me for a minute. I’ve had times in classes where teachers have made me sit out because I have tried to work when I was sitting or hurt. For those of you who are performers or in the theater you know how hard the craft can be on our bodies. Today I was in stage combat class, I hadn’t eaten all day, it’s five in the evening and my knees have been bothering me the whole day. As I go to start the fight, I raised my sword, lost my balance and fell. From that point on my knees were hurting even worse. In the meantime, I had a paper due by six so I was taking every little break I could to get it finished. My partner asked me if I was okay, not wanting to stop the fight because our big test is coming up, I pushed through it. Eventually, I had to keep stopping because my knee was throbbing. At one point I stopped the fight and just hopped on one leg because I could not take the pain. That is when I decided to sit down. When I tried to get up and do the fight again my teacher would not allow me to out of fear that I would hurt myself more. I wanted to keep going because I did not want to miss out on any practice. It was good for me to sit down and not do anything because if not I would have hurt myself and not be able to take the test coming up.
All this to say, Know your limits. I know we all want to be limitless and superhuman, but our bodies can only take so much. Listen to your body when it’s telling you to stop or rest, most times it’s right.
Take a look at the above scriptures, God rested after creating for six days. The Sabbath is known as the day of rest, the scripture commands the people not to do anything on those days but rest. Jesus rested when He was tired and slept. Jesus was on that boat getting some rest when the disciples were freaking out about the storm.
Take a break when you can, even if it five minutes take the time to check in with yourself and make sure you are okay, Your physical health is just as important as your spiritual health. We have to stay healthy and not run ourselves to the ground.
Reflection/ Prayer Time
Just take a moment to check in with yourself, ask God to help you recognize when you are overworking yourself and rest. Take the time to rest, your physical body.
I love you I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Share this with someone and make sure you come back tomorrow for Day 124!
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