Letter from the Editor
Finding our rhythm: a journey to mindful rest
By
Dear Readers,
Welcome back to The Redbud Hyphen. As we walk through this year, we will explore various spiritual disciplines and how they form & shape us more into the image of Christ.
Our first piece of 2025 explores the concept of Rest. Ironically, even though people will read this in January 2025, I am hammering out the words at 10:31 p.m. on a Wednesday in December 2024. Am I the only one who struggles with the concept of Rest or Sabbath?
The New Year inevitably arrives with resolutions and promises of change. Some vow to hit the gym more often, build better habits, and work hard to start the new year with a fresh, clean slate.
Coming to the end of the Christmas season, one might expect a period of contemplation and thoughtfulness. Instead, we are bombarded with media challenging us to change and better ourselves in the new year. Many of us move from the busyness of Christmas to setting challenges for ourselves, keeping us busy again.
Busyness is a never-ending cycle that reinvents itself with every new season. Each season brings a new book, mantra, study, or formula, making it impossible to keep up.
Our Christian ministry world is not exempt from this cycle. From publishing houses to content creators, Christian influencers, writers, and creatives, we all fall prey to busyness. Not many of us would want to admit that we would rather feel overwhelmed than underwhelmed.
Isn’t it better to be too busy than not be busy enough?
While being productive is a good thing, it’s wise to check out motives and maintain a healthy and holy balance to avoid excessive busyness. If we’re striving in response to the constant voice in our heads that tells us we are not doing enough, we’re listening to a message that stands in direct contrast to what God tells us.
However, we live in a world that values productivity. Countless materials have been published to teach us to live highly efficient lives. Cal Newport's "Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment without Burnout" offers a different perspective.
Newport observes: "To work without change or rest all year would have seemed unusual to most of our ancestors. Seasonality was deeply integrated into the human experience. There exists a myth that it's hard to say no, whether to someone else or to your own ambition. The reality is that saying no isn't so bad if you have hard evidence that it's the only reasonable answer. In most cases, people don't measure the productivity of knowledge workers, and when we do, we do it it's done* in really silly ways, like how many papers do academics produce, regardless of quality."
Yet, as you read Newport's book and his arguments for "genuine productivity" and how knowledge workers need "deep contemplation," one senses an element of frenzy in his work as he cites multiple examples of these qualities in many famous people.
One cannot help but wonder if Newport is struggling with the tension between "contingency and control, and the specter of mortality that looms over our preoccupation with productivity and time."1
Whether we do fewer things, prioritize quality over quantity, or work at a manageable pace, we often ignore how our inadequacies, anxieties, fear of loss of relevance, loneliness, sadness, and emptiness drive us to the frenzy of work and production.
There will be those with extraordinary capacity, but for the majority, living a life of balance is challenging. Thanks to social media, escaping the constant stream of achievements and highlight reels from those around us is exhausting. The truth is that the world rewards those who push themselves the hardest, which directly contrasts with what Christ offers us.
The Bible tells us in Psalm 127:2:
“It is in vain that you rise up early
And go late to rest,
Eating the bread of anxious toil
For He gives to His beloved sleep.”
All our striving and running on the hamster wheel is in vain. God gives us good work and good rest. He rested and commanded us to rest. God designed us to need sleep. We don’t have to toil anxiously or endlessly. Instead, we can trust God and no longer strive in vain by resting in the peace of His presence as we pursue Him daily.
Here are four ways we can lean into Sabbath rest:
First, we can honestly acknowledge, to ourselves and God, when we have a problem with rest. We can even ask Him to reveal if we are blind to our struggle. Then, trust Him. Rest is not something that we earn. It is received as a gift from God's good and gracious heart. We can accept the rest He gives us.
Second, we can prioritize the needs of our physical body. We can ensure we get enough sleep, exercise, and spend time with God daily, so we can remain physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually refreshed. It could be as simple as going for a walk or a hike. Some of us might be avid runners, or take a workout class. A friend of mine loves dance classes, something that helps her move her body and sing. Stretching, getting a physical, and making sure we are taking care of the physical body God has given us.
Third, we can make time for rest that brings us joy, something that delights our soul. A walk with a friend, cooking a simple meal, taking an art class, or a fun night out with our buddies, anything that helps us laugh and feel rejuvenated and restored. We don’t need the activity to be fancy or expensive. We just need to be able to enjoy the downtime regularly. It needs to be something we can look forward to and not a rarity in our lives. Resting helps us find joy in surprising ways, so let us actively seek these moments.
Finally, be aware of when you start to feel burned out. We all have good work that God has provided for us to do, and He will reward us according to His will. Therefore, let us work for Him and His glory.
As we enter this new year, we all have dreams, hopes, desires, and perhaps some exhaustion as we contemplate everything ahead of us. There will be times when we feel the urge to push hard and find creative ways to keep working, to keep striving in an unhealthy fashion. Instead, we can try to lean into God and ask Him to reveal what is causing our burden. The more we discover who we are without excessive busyness and endless striving, the more we will understand ourselves and the beautiful way God has created us.
When we embrace the practices of the Sabbath, we learn to trust God, our Maker. Even when we are not producing and not doing, when we’re abiding in Him, He will provide deep rest and help us grow to be more like Him daily.
As we begin 2025, let us consider the following: What would it look like to truly embrace God's gift of rest? Perhaps the first step is simply sitting in His presence, letting go of the need to achieve, and remembering that our worth isn't measured by our productivity but by His unchanging love.
Sherene is a third-culture adult and often finds herself living in liminal spaces. She loves good coffee conversations about Faith, Culture, & Community and enjoys a fun whodunit! Sherene considers herself a reluctant writer but has found writing a unique way to share her thoughts with others. Her super power is connections & networking!
SAVE THE DATE - upcoming webinar
Join us for our first webinar of the new year. Author John Eldridge says, “You cannot be a good writer if you don’t live a soulful life.” But making space for practices that keep you refreshed and energized can be easily pushed to the side as you focus on serving your readers, strengthening your share of voice, and pursuing your writing craft. Without soul care included in your writing routines, you may find yourself feeling depleted and defeated creatively. Safeguarding Your Soul as a Writer offers simple practices that can be woven into your daily writing life to help you retain your love of the craft, even in seasons filled with deadlines and demands. These practices may be used individually or in tandem to help you live a soulful life.
About Our Guest: Ronne Rock weaves themes of transformative hope into everything she shares on page and stage. An award-winning marketing & communication executive, she travels globally to cultivate stories of life-change with Orphan Outreach. Ronne is an author, speaker, mentor, and coach—offering road-tested wisdom to writers and nonprofit professionals on ethical storytelling and fundraising, how to move patrons to partnership, and how to not lose your soul as you share your craft with the world. Her poignant stories are included in a number of anthologies, and she is the author of four books, including One Woman Can Change the World: Reclaiming Your God-Designed Influence and Impact Right Where You Are.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/books/review/slow-productivity-cal-newport.html?searchResultPosition=1
 | A guest post by
|
I plan to make plans to rest this year and to be intentional about rest.
Thank you for this reminder.