How do we rest when our lives are maxed out with to-do lists and circumstances of life, and we’re pressed from all sides? In my last post, Rest: What is That?, I shared three reasons why people don’t rest. We need rest, but we struggle with incorporating it into our busy schedules. So what’s the solution? REST.

R – Reorder your priorities.

Ask God to show you His priorities for you. What is most important to Him? What would He do first? Ask Him to help you prioritize and discern what is important and what is urgent, but not high priority.

E – Exercise restraint.

Learn to say no. If you’re already maxed out, don’t say yes to one more thing. Knowing your SHAPE (spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personality, and experiences), as well as your life purpose statement will help you discern when to say yes and when to say no.

S – Slow down.

Life is fast-paced. We find ourselves hurrying to get more things done. We eat faster, talk faster, shop faster, drive faster – all for the purpose of buying more time to do more things. We have become masters of multi-tasking, and as a result, nothing gets our undivided attention anymore.

John Ortberg talks about the danger of hurry and the practice of slowing in his book, The Life You’ve Always Wanted.

“Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day … For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them… Hurry is not just a disordered schedule, but it’s a disordered heart.”

T – Trust God.

We can stop to rest, even if everything is not done, because we trust that God will accomplish what truly needs to be done. He knows how much time we have in a day, and He knows how many things we need to accomplish. We trust Him to help us do what He calls us to.

We find rest as we come to Jesus and put our trust in Him. He said in Matthew 11:28-29, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and You will find rest for your souls.”

True rest is found in yielding to Jesus, as our Savior and also as our Lord. When we take His yoke upon us, we stop going our own way and doing our own thing. We surrender and yield to His guidance and leading in our lives. We trust Him to guide us, and we can rest.

Take some time and evaluate how you’re doing in these four areas. Do you need to reorder your priorities? Do you need to exercise restraint and say no to something? Do you need to slow down? Do you need to trust God? REST.