Give

Give

Give

Rest

by Sonya Anthes

Now that the holidays have passed and we have entered in to a new year, I’m sure many of you have decided on a New Year’s resolution. From preparing for Thanksgiving to Christmas, life can seem pretty stressful and hectic and then comes the new year. We take a deep breath of relief and say to ourselves, “This year I am going to ______.” And we have every intention on doing _____ but then we get overwhelmed again and our resolutions that we were so excited about turn into obligations and then forgotten all together. How about, this year, instead of a resolution, we rest. Take a deep breath and let it go. Why put the added pressure on yourself? REST. I’m sure that you have times where you are so busy or overwhelmed or tired that you just “don’t have time” to rest, do your devotional and spend quiet time with the Lord or read His word. Isn’t this the most important thing? This is where we find rest. The Lord says to come to Him and you will find rest.

 

Now, here is where it gets tricky. Our children are so overwhelmed with activities, homework, etc that they probably need someone to model what true rest in the Lord looks like. At times, spending time with the Lord can seem like an obligation, like one more thing we need to do today but then other times we feel refreshed and uplifted like it was exactly what we needed. I am guilty of both feelings but after I have felt obligated and still spent time in the Word, I have never regretted it. Is there any greater blessing than time with the Lord?

“But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” Psalms 1:2 ESV

y hope is, if you are not already, that your children would see how important your time with the Lord is to you. Let them see a true hunger for the Lord. Do a family devotional, pray together, read the Word together, figure out ways to show Christ’s love to others together. Our children need to see how important and relevant our God is. Even if your children are grown, continue sharing with them what the Lord has been teaching you and hopefully they will respond with what the Lord has been teaching them or at least get their wheels turning. And if you have grandchildren, spend time sharing your wisdom and the love of Christ with them. Some of my most cherished memories as a child was sitting on the front porch swing at my mamaw and papaw’s house and talking about God, the Bible, questions we would like to ask God when we got to heaven, the meaning of scriptures, etc. It was such a safe place to talk and learn but also, I was able to see that they still had questions too and that they lived on their FAITH. You don’t have to have all the answers and it's good to show that you don’t have all the answers and that is where your faith comes in.  

Then Jesus told them, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:29 NIV

If you would like to start a family devotional and need help finding one, I would love to help. We will be starting a new Wednesday night study with the 3rd-5th grade called Walking with the Wise and there is a family devotional that goes along with it called Wise Up. If you are interested in doing this devotional with your family, I can order you a book. We are in this together.

“Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance,” Prov. 1:5 ESV

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