Break Check

Do you ever get tired? Do you ever get so exhausted that when you sit down at night to sleep, you can’t rest because you’re so tired? When you think about your sleep later on during a day, do you not see the light (or rather the dark) end of the tunnel because crazy schedules?

If you don’t want to read all of this and want to know the main point: Let’s all slow down and rest. Let’s all look around and see if God is trying to show us something in our lives.

If you’re super awesome and want to continue reading, I’d like to quote Mario and say “here we go!” (Apologizing right now for this) *shakes head at self*

As a freshman in college, I’ve already noticed something during my short experience on campus. Whenever you walk around and ask someone how their day was, one of the many typical responses runs along the lines of, “Good. Really tired, but good”. As a fellow student, I can completely understand and relate to how they are feeling.

Even though I’ve noticed this with college students, I feel like this post can apply to just about anyone who feels like they can’t seem to slow down. In our family I always heard the phrase, “We drive our cars until the wheels fall off, then we just put them right back on and keep on driving”. I always thought it was a hilarious saying, and fully understood it myself about a year ago.

One day as I was driving on the interstate, I was picking up my mom (I can’t remember if I was running late, but I probably was) to go pick up her vehicle. As I moved into the passing lane to move around a car, I sped up to then realize that my car would no longer do that. It didn’t matter how many times I could press down on that pedal, because my awesome car wouldn’t go. I coasted down the interstate onto the medium and proceeded to try cranking the engine. Nope. Nada. Nothing. Thankfully my mom’s co-worker picked me up and drove us to my mom’s car, but I ended up having to get my super fast 1996 Camry towed to a shop.

Story time over.

I felt like the story needed to be told so that I can share this next part with you. Do you ever feel like your world is moving so fast sometimes that you can’t even catch up? I realized that my story could be an analogy to what might be going on! So here is a list to write it out a little more:

 

Way to tell that we might need a brake (break) check:

 

1. We are moving so quickly that we don’t even pay attention to our surroundings.

I was moving around with my busy schedule that I failed to stop for a few moments during the time to see how I was emotionally, spiritually, and physically holding up (My car was okay, by the way). I realized that sometimes we have to evaluate how everything is holding up under the hood, or if it is at all. I’m still talking about cars, but I really mean our relationship with God.

My car shut down because I didn’t see the part that was incorrectly working. Doesn’t the same thing happen to us sometimes? We are going and going. Whether it’s a job or school, we keep moving and we aren’t slowing down to check in on ourselves. You begin to think about all the things you have to do, and then eventually get to the point where you are just drained in every area. Do you ever work at night and try to plan out when you are going to fall asleep? For example, if you are up at 11:00 pm working on a paper, you say to yourself that if you can finish by 1 then you will fall asleep around 1:30 and get about 6 hours of sleep.

Yes, it is so important to wake yourself up and cut so you can have more time, but not at the expense of rest.

“There’s no workman, whatsoever he be, that may both work well and hastily.”

-Geoffry Chaucer

I love that quote because it really does remind me to be give myself the time I need to work hard, but to take my time. It tells me to rest and remember to grab tight on to Jesus’ love.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I love that. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

“and you will find rest for your souls.”

“rest for your souls.”

Wow. When I broke it down, I found myself realizing something.

I would go along at a fast-pace throughout the whole day and at the end of it pray that Jesus would help. Nowadays I am talking to God first and it’s always much more helpful. He teaches us how to deal with our problems of the day, and then we find rest in knowing that we can handle it without any collateral damage.

To wrap it all up: Instead of planning rest around our schedule, why don’t we rest first and spend time in the Word to know how to handle our schedule? 

It was something that became heavy on my heart and is still to this day.

If you’ve made it to the end, thank you so much for reading and I hope it wasn’t a waste for you.

In this, I’m just a creation trying to live for the Creator.