No Time for Leisure

Mark 6:31

And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.

Jesus and His disciples had constant times of ministry. They seemed to be getting tired from the service; however, Jesus sent them out to a desert place so they could get a little rest. What is interesting is that the next part of the story is that, as they arrived at the place where they were to rest, a large group of people had come to hear Jesus preach and to see Him perform miracles. Instead of getting time for rest, they were thrust right back into the service of the work of God. The amazing part is that the very desert place that God sent the disciples to get rest is the very place where they saw the great miracle of the feeding of the five thousand.

We have a warped thinking of how to get rest. We think that we must sit down and do nothing to get rest; however, the Scriptures teach a different principle for getting rest. Isaiah 40:31 says, But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. You will notice that God says that He gives rest by waiting upon Him, which is serving Him. Mark 11:29 teaches, Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. Again, the Scriptures do not teach that you get rest by sitting and doing nothing, but you get rest by serving God. God's way of leisure is not to play, but to work in His service, and it is while you work in His service that He gives you the rest that you need for your body, soul, and spirit. Let me share a couple of thoughts with you about this critical truth.

One way that I get rest is I take mini vacations every week. My week consists of over a dozen hours of soul-winning, well over a dozen hours of walking with God, and this does not include preaching services, office work, counseling sessions, or teaching at our Bible college. My week stays very busy. However, I have learned to take short breaks to rest my mind by shutting everything down for a few minutes. There is nothing wrong with taking a 20- or 30-minute nap during the day to rejuvenate your energy.

Another way that I get rest is by serving God. I have my set times that I go soul winning every week. Many of those times are when my body is most tired. However, I have found that as I go soul winning is when God rejuvenates my energy by allowing me to see someone saved. You can be assured that God will absolutely give you more energy after you have seen someone saved than you will ever get by doing nothing.

My friend, you get rest by serving the Lord. God's promise in His Word is that He will give you rest if you will serve Him. This generation has placed way too much emphasis on burnout when the real reason they say we need time the rest is because they are too lazy to serve the Lord. Nobody has ever burnt out serving the Lord; they burnt out by not serving God. When you sit and do nothing, that is when you become weary of serving God, and that is when you become critical and quit on God. The best advice I can give you on getting rest is to serve the Lord, and what you will find is that God will do His greatest works in your life when you are tired, and He will use those works to rejuvenate and give you the rest that you need.