Over the Labor Day weekend, Greg and I took our camper to a wonderful campground in Ellijay, Georgia and relaxed for a few days. It was such an awesome time of rest and rejuvenation for me. I slept in each morning until 6am, which for me is late. I am usually up at 4:30 or 5am seven days a week when I am at home. When Greg played golf in the mornings, I spent time doing Bible study and writing, while my afternoons were spent reading the latest Randy Alcorn novel, “Deception”. By my own standards, I was a lazy bum, but oh, how my mind and body needed that time of rest.
In the past few weeks I was so wound up about work, ministry, home, and a zillion other things that I drove myself from daylight to dark, falling in bed exhausted at the end of a day and feeling as if I had nothing to show for all my efforts. What kind of idiocy is that? It certainly is not biblical and you might want to change my name to Martha—you know, sister of Mary, the one who couldn’t stop her preparations for dinner long enough to visit with Jesus when He came to their home. I guess the next book I read needs to be Joanna Weaver’s “Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World”, which is on my nightstand as we speak!!
It is a sad statement on my personal boundary setting abilities when I cannot even rest in my own home. The only time I truly allow myself to unwind and rejuvenate is when we are camping. It is way past time that I took a moment and meditated on the words of Jesus in Mark 6:31-32, repented of my busyness to the point of exhaustion and then put Christ’s words into practice in my own life. In these verses it says, “Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said, to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’ So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.”
If the Lord Jesus Christ, the maker of heaven and earth required rest in a solitary place, why in the world would I think that I am any less in need of rest than He? On the contrary, I need rest even more and it would be to my distinct advantage, both mentally and physically, to get that through my very hard head!
While I cannot camp every week in order to find my solitary place, I can carve out a solitary place to rest in or around my home, if only I will. What constitutes a solitary place of rest? It may be different for all of us, but for me it is a place where there are no ringing phones, no washer and dryer begging for a load of laundry, and no internet. My solitary place must include my Bible, a Bible study of some type and a comfortable chair. It also might include a good book and a computer for writing. It is nice if there are mountains and the sounds of nature in my solitary place, but that is not necessary. The one thing that is absolutely essential in my solitary place, however, is my heart prepared to come away, spend time with Jesus, and rest.
What does your solitary place look like? I encourage you to find a solitary place each week where you can spend time with Jesus resting and renewing your spirit.
