10 Ways to Rest Well

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Work is a spiritual experience that involves the whole person; our wills, minds, feelings, physical bodies, and social context. It can have an extremely positive impact on our identity. However; in our current culture work can easily become too much of a good thing. We need to intentionally cultivate the spiritual experience of rest to assist us in being balanced, whole, healthy individuals. These 10 Ways to Rest Well hopefully will bless you with some tangible activities you can easily practice in order to better find that balance.

  1. Rest on Purpose—Rest should be intentional. You need to decide to rest at regularly scheduled intervals. It will not happen by accident. It is best when those intervals of rest actually become a habit.
  2. Limit Interruptions—If work-like activity can find you through your phone, email, or social media, make an effort to avoid the use of electronic devices. Have a friend or significant other as your filter in case of emergencies.
  3. Celebrate—As often as possible, attach rest to a celebration of successfully accomplished work. Rest as celebration can put work in its proper context. This could include everything from completed assignments, terms, years and especially degrees.
  4. Rest before Exhaustion—Rest is most valuable when it is not absolutely needed. Rest when you are healthy enough to enjoy it.
  5. [Re]CREAT(e)ion—Choose resting activities that renew your strength and energy. Sometimes doing something specific is more restful than doing nothing (vacation).
  6. Avoid Work-like Distractions—Not every diversion is restful. Not everyone rests the same way. Experiment and learn what activities are truly restful for you.
  7. Do Something Different—The best rest can often be qualitatively different than our work. Physical or mental, active or passive, determined or unending, indoor or outdoor.
  8. Trust Others—Delegate work responsibilities to others when you rest.
  9. Communicate Self-Worth—You are valuable as a person outside of what you accomplish. Rest help you understand this.
  10. Take Care of Yourself—Rest should include any needed sleep, eating, exercise, spiritual recharging, self-maintenance. Especially if it has be deferred due to work.

Sharing Your Faith at Work

If our Christian faith is intimately foundational to our work (what we do, how we work, how we make decisions at work, etc.) then discussing our work with others should naturally involve discussing our faith.  When necessary to talk about the motivation behind actions and decisions at work, discussing the underlying spiritual motivations as well as others is a matter of openness, integrity and honesty.  If my motivations are important at my job, and my primary motivator is what I believe, then being forthright about my faith with my co-workers is essential for them to understand and relate to me.  If I regularly include my job, my co-workers, my company in my prayers then it is okay to make that known.  If I draw spiritual significance from my everyday work routine, then it is okay to make that known.  If there are results at work that I attribute to the blessing of God, then it is okay to make that known. 

In the movie “The Big Kahuna,” the character Larry Mann describes workers as functions and not persons.   Who they are is not important; only what they do in regard to the job.  But as we more fully integrate our faith with our work it becomes increasingly more difficult to separate who we are from what we do.

As we integrate our faith and work in the spirit of Work-Ship everything about how we work will begin to appear distinct from those around us.  Working in such a way that the image of God can be seen through us is quite different.  Acknowledging how we can be creative and sustentative at work like God the Father will contrast to the way most people work.  Being redemptive and working hard on our communication will set us apart.  Working in a convicting and empowering manner is unique.  We will begin to experience ourselves differently as we come to realize just how we were created by God to work.  We will exist comfortably balanced between work and rest that few others achieve.  We will work confidently knowing that what we are doing is God’s will for our lives.  Through prayer we will rely on God’s blessing for our success and trust in God’s will during our failures.  We will become very conspicuous at work.  This will bring a plethora of opportunities to explain to others what we believe.  Be prepared to share what you believe at work and how it connects to the way you work.

1 Peter 3:15-16 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

Imagine being asked why you are so eager to do a creative aspect of your job.  You will get to explain the creative nature of God using your work as an example and metaphor.  Imagine being able to connect some redemptive aspect of your work to sharing the Gospel story of Christ’s redemption of humanity with a co-worker for the first time.  Imagine describing life with the Holy Spirit in terms of how you try to empower others at your job.  Imagine sharing your trust in God as you are able to describe your ability to rest in His hands and be recreated from the stress that work creates.

I often filter evangelism through the lens of five question areas that people are already asking. Those five question areas are relationships, lifestyle, purpose, belonging and beliefs. How we love God and others through our work, how we work together, the trust we need to work together, communicating, empower and convicting others are area of Work-Ship that might surface questions about relationships. The gospel of Jesus’ life death and resurrection has great implications for relationships. Discussing relationships in the context of work could require you to share the gospel in order to explain to your co-workers why you work the way you do. The same is true for lifestyle. Work/Rest balance is greatly influenced by the peace you have found through the gospel. Hearing God’s voice, working in light of the Great Commission and Great Commandment, and displaying the image of God through your work are all purposed-centered question producing invitations to invite others to know about the gospel that is foundational to the meaning behind you work. Overcoming sin through good work demonstrates how the gospel can help us find a temporary home where we belong in this fallen world. And finally, hopefully this entire series has shown you how you can have your beliefs drive your work.

If anyone ever asks why you work the way you do, would it be possible for you to give them an honest answer without the gospel?

Praying for Your Work

1 Chronicles 4:9-10 Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother named him Jabez and said, “I gave birth to him in pain.”  Jabez called out to the God of Israel: “If only You would bless me, extend my border, let Your hand be with me, and keep me from harm, so that I will not cause any pain.” And God granted his request.

When we look at Jabez it is important to note that Scripture refers to him as honorable.  The only thing he is noted to have done is call out to the God of Israel.  So Jabez is honorable and prays.  Based on these two observations it would be safe to conclude that there is some positive spiritual quality to Jabez’s life.  He was to some extent concerned with God and God’s blessing on his life.  He was to some extent on speaking terms with God.  He was in some way connected to God.  Given this assumption when he asks for God’s blessing and success it can be assumed that those actions he is asking God to bless are within God’s will.  Jabez is not actively engaged in work that would violate God’s general call for Christians today.

Going a little bit more specific, I want to show how this passage applies to work.  In the context of an agrarian society, land was the key to wealth and success.  The more quality land you possessed the greater amounts of crops you could produce and the larger herds you could tend.  Land ownership was the key to prosperity.  Jabez’s petition to God to extend his borders was a request for occupational and financial success.  He asked God to make him successful and rich.  God granted this request.  There is nothing absolutely contradictory between occupational or financial success and the will of God.  You can be successful and in God’s will.  However, I want to quickly remind us that success is not a measure of faithfulness.  The stories of Job, the man born blind and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus clearly show that success and faithfulness are not always connected.  If we are confident that what we are doing is within God’s will for us it would be entirely appropriate for us to pray for success.

1 John 5:14-15 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

Our work can be in the image of God.  We are created as human beings to work.  We can work with a healthy work/rest balance within the limits of work.  Our should be within God’s will for our work.  If we think about these things but to also apply them, then our work should align with God’s will.  With some effort to make sure our work, in some way, coincides with God’s will, then praying about our work should be praying according to God’s will.  If you are reluctant to pray for your work that may be a sign from the Holy Spirit that your current work is not God’s will for you.

How can you ask God to bless your work?

Jesus’ Work-Based Parables

Jesus used parables revolving around work to communicate truths about God and the Kingdom. Check out the list below and see how many of Jesus’ were set in the context of business or work. Work is a huge part of everyone of our lives. We understand work. We know what work is like. Jesus used the familiar aspects of the working world in His day to communicate truth about God, God’s Kingdom and our place in God’s kingdom. These are common everyday pictures that help us understand uncommon eternal realities. Take a moment to read some of the passages listed below.

From Ed Silvoso, Anointed for Business p. 37

  • Construction (Matthew 7:24 – 27)
  • Wine Making (Luke 5:37 – 38)
  • Farming (Mark 4:2- 20)
  • Treasure Hunting (Matthew 13:44)
  • Ranching (Matthew 18:12 – 14)
  • Management and Labor (Matthew 20:1 – 16)
  • Family-owned Business (Matthew 21:28 – 31)
  • Hostile Takeovers (Luke 20:9 – 19)
  • Return On Investments (Matthew 25:14 – 30)
  • Future Markets (Luke 12:16 – 21)
  • Crop Yield (Mark 13:27 – 32)
  • Management Criteria (Luke 12:35 – 48)
  • Observation and Research (Luke 14:24 – 35)
  • Misuse of money/bankruptcy (Luke 15:11 – 16)
  • Leverage (Luke 16:1 – 13)
  • Venture Capital (Luke 19:11 – 27)

Is there a way that you can use your job or work experience as a metaphor or parable to communicate a godly truth to others?

A helpful resource for thinking about how our modern work context can be used to communicate truths about God is John Van Sloten’s Every Job a Parable: What Walmart Greeters, Nurses, and Astronauts Tell Us About God.

“Parables were a key aspect of Jesus’ teachings – he depicted God’s Kingdom through stories about laborers, farmers, jewel merchants, kings, judges, managers, builders, general-store keepers, landlords, and vineyard owners.”

Your job can be a way God uses to tell the story of what He is like, what His coming Kingdom is about, or how we are supposed to fit into that Kingdom.

The Reason, Regency and Relationships of Work

We are created in the image of God. And that image can be put on display as we work, as we work together and as we rest. Philosophers and theologians throughout history have described three ways that the image of God could be displayed in humanity. Those three ideas were the substantive approach, the functional approach, and the relational approach. the substantive approach is that something about being a human is like God in some way. Who we are in our substance is like God. A lot of the scholars center this likeness in our ability to reason and make willful choices. The image of God is on display in human beings as we use our intellect and reason to choose. The functional approach centers the image of God in something human beings do. We act like God as we rule over the rest of creation as God’s ambassadors. We are God’s regents here on earth and in doing so it is our job to display God’s image. The relational approach says that God’s image is visible in us as we relate to God and to one another. God is a Trinity in eternal relationships with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Therefore our relationships look like the Divine relationships.

Work helps us display the regency aspect of the image of God in us. Rest helps us understand that the image of is part of who we are not just what we do. And as we work together, we can display the image of a Triune God in our relationships. That image is on display as we do good work.

Work is good when it is good for the worker.  Work that is good for the worker is at the least humane but ultimately good work helps make us more Christlike.  Work can be a means to discipleship. Work is good when it is good for the creation. Work that is good for the creation brings value out of those natural beauty and resources that readily available turning jungles into gardens not parking lots. Work in creation is a path to stewardship. Work is good when it is good for the community. Good work strengthens relationships. Work that is good serves the needs of others and is a way to love our neighbor. Work in community should be fellowship.

Our definition of work is:

Work is the intentional use of a person’s energy (mental, physical, emotional and/or spiritual) to accomplish a specific and valuable change.

The idea of a person’s intention in work speaks to the image of God in our ability to make willful decision or as theologians would say the substantive aspect of the image of God.  We’ve been using the word Reason to describe it. Discipleship is the spiritual action that makes our intentions more Christlike.

When work changes something that is our impact on God’s creation as God’s regents, ruling over the creation as commanded in Genesis 1:26 – 31. This is our regency approach to work. Stewardship it the discipline of treating the creation as a gift from God and changing it accordingly.

Work is valued by the community and in the context of relationships with others. We can see the relational image of God in us as we work. Fellowship is the act of loving each other through work that is mutually valuable.

Working Hard for the Sake of the Gospel

Paul’s missionary lifestyle as a tent-maker is a great example of how you can use your profession to help share your faith.

Acts 18: 1 – 4 (NIV) After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.  There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them,  and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.  Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

The first item to note is that Luke refers to Aquila as a Jew.  From this introduction it is proper to assume that at the time of Paul meeting Aquila in Corinth that Aquila was not yet a follower of Jesus.  However, later in Scripture we see that Aquila and his wife Priscilla become “co-workers” with Paul for the sake of the Gospel.  Paul uses the work environment to lead someone to Christ and disciple them.  Their relationship more than likely initiated over their share trade and grew from there.

Acts 20:34-35 (NIV)  You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions.  In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

The second note is that our work gives us the ability to bless those in need.  Being able to help the weak demonstrates the validity of words of Jesus.  The Gospel is shown to be powerful when we help others  through the resources we gain because of our work.  Ministering to others needs doesn’t make the Gospel true but it does help others see the truth of the Gospel.

1 Thessalonians 2:9 (NIV) Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.

In Thessalonica we see Paul chose to work so that the Gospel could be preached to the lost without cost.  (This can also be seen in 1 Corinthians 9:6 – 18.) He did not want to burden those without Christ with having to pay for the blessing of hearing about Him.  This idea of funding the Gospel with resources outside of the ministry allows for the Gospel to preached in places that would never pay for it themselves.  We share the faith not to those who are willing to invest in it already.  We share the Gospel with anyone and everyone.  We share the Gospel wherever no matter how much money is available.  Grace is a free gift.  The preaching of the Gospel to those you need to hear it should be as well.

2 Thessalonians 3:8-10 (NIV) nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you.  We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you to imitate.  For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

Work is a good and blessed thing.  Work is a gift to humanity from God.  it should never be purposefully avoided.  You should not have a negative attitude toward work.  No one is too important to God to be “burdened” with working.  Working should not be seen as a burden and when the circumstances are necessary every single one of should be willing to work and work hard for the sake of the Gospel.

How could your work help you fulfill the Great Commission?  Do you have work colleagues that may become disciples of Jesus?  Do you work so that you can support others sharing the Gospel?  Do you have a job that could support you on the mission field?  Do you give to those who don’t have so that others can see the truth of the Gospel as it changes your life?

Work and the Great Commission

Matthew 28:18 – 20 Then Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

We are commissioned by Jesus into the world to make disciples.  Jesus sends us to baptize and teach others to follow his name.  These instructions should be the guiding principle for our lives as Christians.  But how does this verse relate to work?  How do we apply it to our everyday occupations?

First, our jobs must not prevent us from carrying out the Great Commission.  This might be a little difficult to imagine.  I’m not talking about jobs that take up your time and have certain limitations on your social interactions in the work environment.  All jobs have a time requirement that prioritizes what we can accomplish during the work and what we cannot.  I am talking about a job that would lower your ability to communicate the Gospel accurately to others; a job that hurts your testimony or credibility.  It could also be jobs that are so mobile or isolating that we are not able to interact with others in a normal way.  Just for a somewhat exaggerated example a job where you are the only person inhabiting a weather reporting station in Antarctica might be a job that prevents you from fulfilling the Great Commission.

Second, our jobs should help us in completing the Great Commission.  Now this is a bit easier to explain.  Most work, if examined properly, would and could be viewed as a benefit to completing the Great Commission.  Most work will place you in a context that would not otherwise be available to you.  As you work you go to places you would not normally go.  As you go you can take the Gospel with you.  Most work brings you into contact with people that you would have never met otherwise.  As you work you meet people.  Some of these people, whether co-workers, clients, customers, bosses, or suppliers you have the opportunity to build a relationship with.  As you build that relationship you will have opportunities to share the Gospel with them.

Does your job prevent you from fulfilling the Great Commission?  

How are you able to build relationships with others through your work?

How do you need to improve building relationships through work and/or sharing the Gospel in the context of those relationships?

Work and the Great Commandment

Every Christian’s General Calling:
Every part of every Christian’s life is challenged by the basics of their faith. Every Christian’s occupation must also come under the influence of their Christianity. You must work as a Christian should work. An in-depth look at what it means to be a Christian is a grand topic that is outside of this endeavor. For the interest of time (with the hope that I’m not being too cliché) I will summarize the Christian faith by the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

The Great Commandment

Matthew 22:37-39 (HCSB)  He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

Mark 12:29 – 31 (HCSB) “This is the most important,” Jesus answered: Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.”

The Great Commandment of loving God with all that we have takes on some different forms as it is originally written in Hebrew by Moses, then quoted and taught in Aramaic (probably) by Jesus, and finally re-written in Greek by Matthew and Mark. The central idea is that we are to love God with everything that we have. This is would include loving God with our work. Do you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength at your work? Do you love your neighbors (bosses, co-workers, customers) as you work?

Dallas Willard in the book Renovation of Heart connects those parts of the human being described in the Great Commandment to our modern concepts. What Mark referred to as the heart, we would more likely call the will, today. The heart is the place where we make and keep our decisions. The mind is used similarly both then and now as the part of us that thinks. The soul might be more the area of the human being that deals with feelings, especially those serious feelings like hope, joy, peace or fear and worry. The strength is our physical presence in the world. And loving our neighbor describes how we engage the society around us. Our wills, minds, feelings, bodies and social context all are part of our work experience. We can love (or not love) God in all these ways as we work.

Everything we do must fall within the parameters of a healthy worshipful loving relationship with God. And nothing we do should interfere with our love of others.  Your work must not interfere with your relationship with God.  You must be able to love the Lord your God at your work with a clear conscience.  You must be able to love your neighbor at your job.  You cannot have a job that primarily brings suffering to human beings and feel that it is compatible with your Christian faith.  And the second tier of that question is if it doesn’t interfere which job will help you love God and love others the best.

Does your job by its very nature interfere with your worship of God?

Does you your job help or hinder you loving others?

Does your job contribute to your love of God?

What Work Should I Do?

If there are many available and good options for us, how do we decide what specifically to do?  Does God care what type of work we do?  Should we seek God’s guidance in our career and job choices?  What does that guidance look like?

These are important questions today because of our occupational mobility, which is a relatively recent development brought by the Industrial Revolution. Historically occupations were not a matter of personal decisions. You did what your father did before you. The sons of carpenters were carpenters. The sons of farmers were farmers. Boys went into the family business. It was not just an expectation. It was merely a fact. Today some people experience pressure from their parents to choose the same line of work that they have chosen. Fathers still want and encourage their sons to take over the family business. This is not what I’m talking about. In previous times there really were not options for occupations. It was occupationally static for all males. I have been intentionally sexist in my description because there were even fewer choices for women.

Some rare moments the community would call on a specifically gifted individual into a different line of service. Every once and awhile a father could arrange special training for a son in a different occupation. Some people would be chosen by the elders to go into religion. At other times the community would demand some to go to war.  But these were not matters of personal decisions. The individual never had to wrestle with the question of what should I do.

Scripture is written in this context of static occupations. Farmers remained farmers and slaves typically remained slaves. Soldiers were soldiers. Tax collectors stayed as tax collectors. The best Christian theological development on work can be seen in the idea of vocation. However, most of the thinking was initiated by John Calvin and finalized from within the European feudal system. The feudal system is still a context of basically static occupations. Allow me to summarize traditional Christian medieval thinking on work. An omnipotent and omniscient God has divinely ordered the entire world down to the minutia of detail. This order includes your station in His created realm. Where God has placed you is exactly where God wants you. To question your occupation is to question the very plan of God. But today things have changed. So what guidance can we find from God for the occupational context in which we find ourselves?

Even in Scriptures that were written in a static environment we can apply some of the principles to our new found freedom in the world of work.  First of all let’s look at one verse that encourages change.

1 Corinthians 7:21 (NIV)  Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so.

Although, slavery was more than just an occupation in Ancient Roman culture, it was at its core a type of work.  This verse does two specific things.  It allows people to be content in a less than optimal work environment.  If you are forced into work and working conditions that are not perfect it is okay.  In other places Paul will even encourage you to do your best in even bad situations.  But it also says that if we do have the opportunity to pursue a working situation that is better than our current condition we should.  It is okay to be downtrodden if you can’t change your circumstances but if you can go for it.  

The Scriptures allow for us to move but how should we decide to do that?