The new year is in full swing. In the Morrison home, we’ve just completed two weeks of doing absolutely nothing. No soccer games. No meetings. No projects or deadlines. No schedules whatsoever. But like so many families, we’ve gone from restful quiet to an onslaught of appointments in the blink of an eye. The boys are busy with practices, games, orchestra rehearsals, and small group activities. I’m already back to classes and work is ramping up. We’ve reverted to the familiar rhythm of just trying not to drown.
As much as it might sound like I’m complaining, our lives are hardly busier than any of our friends or family. This way of living is shockingly normal in a culture that is relentlessly connected, idolizes busyness, and equates rest with laziness. The tide toward living without margin is strong and difficult to combat. And yet, as Christians, we serve a God who values rest so much that he modeled it in the way he created the world, made it a commandment to the people of Israel, and repeatedly promises it to his followers throughout the New Testament. We were created for rhythms of work and rest, yet we often ignore this truth in the way we live. But why?
While we may not want to admit it, the reason runs much deeper than just needing to be distracted or being unable to say no to things.
Proving Our Value
My own bad habits surrounding work and rest began when I was 25. After graduating college, I came into the workforce in the middle of the 2008 recession. Absolutely no one was hiring and it took me three years to finally land a full-time position with a ministry. The organization was initially a great fit. I enjoyed plenty of success in my role. But when the ministry suddenly hired a new director, all of that changed. His first day in the office was a dramatic shift in our culture. The job I had loved became a nightmare. Then, one day, I was told that I brought no value to the ministry and I was removed from my role.
Suddenly, I was 6 months into our first mortgage with a wife and an 18-month-old son at home. Our savings were depleted from the down payment on the house and we were headed off a cliff in a still very difficult job market. By God’s grace, I landed an amazing job just weeks later, but I had to work tirelessly to prove myself. Meanwhile, a familiar phrase kept haunting me – “You bring no value.”
As if that sentence wasn’t difficult enough to process, having it tied to my family’s wellbeing only added more weight. I decided that I would never let a church or ministry have reason to say that about me again. Rooted in this fear of being seen as worthless in ministry came a determination to take control. I began to feel like I was only ever as good as my last success. I’d work long hours to show I was bought in and committed. I developed a philosophy that no one should ever be busier than me.
The habits and rhythms I developed became deeply engrained. Over the course of nine years, I bought the lie that my value was determined by what I do and what I can provide to others. Intellectually, I knew that my real worth is in being a child of God who is created in his image and ransomed by Christ’s work on the cross. But that was honestly not enough for me. Jesus was no longer enough for me. I had turned the satisfaction of others and the promise of financial security into an idol. It was leading me on an unsustainable trajectory.
In The Common Rule, Justin Earley confesses to a similar mindset:
I often begin the day in the office in a surge of energy and productivity. In the morning, tasks are clear. My to-do lists are organized. I have an (always unrealistic) sense that I’m going to accomplish everything that day. On the right cocktail of coffee, sheer willpower, and fear of failure, I can ride these plans for at least a couple of hours and sometimes even until noon. But then the wheels begin to fall off. I usually notice this moment because I have the urge for still more coffee, even though I know it will give me the jitters. Or I have the urge to search the internet. For what? I don’t know. I just want to search. Somewhere between noon and two, I begin to realize that all the things I had hoped were going to get done are not going to get done. I realize that somebody is going to have to be disappointed. I begin to look down the barrel of the afternoon, and I see that I’m not good enough. I can’t do it. People don’t listen to me, and all the feelings of legalism return: If I can’t hack it, what am I worth anyway?
He goes on to make a startling confession.
I often find myself lying in bed and facing the reality that I spent the whole day trying to justify my existence on earth.
When we define our worth by what we can achieve, rather than by what Christ has achieved on our behalf, the very rest that is modeled, commanded, and promised begins to feel foreign, sinful, and unnatural.
I don’t know many people who just work too much for the fun of it. I’ve never met anyone who lists answering emails as a hobby. But I do know plenty of people who spend their lives trying to justify their existence. Some do it through long hours in the office. Others do it by juggling as many friendships as possible. People-pleasing, workaholism, over-scheduled calendars, and compromised sleep schedules are all familiar symptoms of someone who is trying to prove their value.
Remembering Our Value
No amount of productivity, achievement, or satisfied customers will ever add an ounce to your personal value in the eyes of your Creator. You are created in his image (Genesis 1:27). You are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:13-14). Despite the fact we have all sinned against him and lived outside of his design for us, he sent his son to die for us (Romans 5:8), paying the price for our rebellion against him. As his followers, we are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). Your value isn’t earned. It cannot be supplemented by your successes or reduced by your failures. It is cemented in these unshakeable truths.
This does not mean that our efforts are worthless or sinful. In reminding the Ephesians of the foundational truths of the gospel, Paul writes, “for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).” Work is an integral part of our lives. It is an opportunity to bring glory to the one who pronounces us valuable. But when we try to use that same work to prove our value outside of him instead, it fails to do what it was meant to do. Simply put, we’re taking something meant to glorify God and we’re using it to glorify ourselves instead.
Remembering The Sabbath
When God rehashes the ten commandments with the Israelites before they enter the Promised Land in Deuteronomy 5, he reminds them:
“You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”In other words, God is saying, “you wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me.”
Before the exodus, the Israelites were helpless slaves. Their lives were nothing more than expendable commodities to the Egyptians. Their work was the only way to justify their existence.
Despite the oppression, they didn’t plan an insurrection against their captors or wage war. When they were at the banks of the Red Sea and the Egyptian army was barreling towards them, Moses told the people in Exodus 14, “The Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
God brought the greatest military of that time to its knees to rescue the people he had called out as his own. Surely a God who can do that can make sure they still eat on a day when they don’t work for it. The Sabbath served as an ongoing recognition of that truth. Their rest was a declaration of dependence and an act of worship toward the God who had saved them.
Similarly, a God who is powerful enough to speak creation into existence and loving enough to rescue you from your own sin can surely be trusted to provide for your most basic needs. He didn’t need the Israelites’ efforts to save them from the Egyptians. He didn’t need your efforts to save you from your sin. He certainly doesn’t need your efforts to provide a life that has meaning and value.
Simply put, God is sovereign and you are not. You are limited in energy and time and strength. He is not. Rest is the active recognition of this truth. There will always be new expectations on your life. There will always be more projects, more emails, and more goals. There will always be new ways to measure your worth. But these demands pale in comparison to our Savior who says, “come to me and I will give you rest.”
