If we want real rest, focusing on “Me Time” may be more hindrance than help. Google “Me Time” and get over 14.5 million results. Secular sources like Lifehack say, “Me Time gives your mind a chance to rest.” It may feel that way at first, but not when Me Time is over. With so many connections streaming in our lives, recapturing rest is a problem.
The Lie of Me Time
The idea of being entitled to Me Time makes it harder to find real rest. Lifehack goes on to say, “All these interruptions and demands for our attention destroy our ability to focus on ourselves. Instead, we are pushed to focus on other people. But if you were to set aside a bit of time each day to yourself, you would be able to identify and focus on your priorities and the things you want for yourself.” In this example of present thought on wellness and self-stewardship, focusing on others is unhealthy, and focusing on ourselves is the answer. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
To self soothe and restore the soul, culture puts own story, experience, and emotions on center stage with a promise of getting back control. Social media platforms and self-publishing sites allow rest-seekers to polish and reinforce buying into such me-ism. This Story of Self can be easily blended with Christian lingo, adding confusion.
I’m not a licensed counselor or doctor, though therapy today infuses all corners of our conversations. Ironically, current therapeutic approaches tend to reinforce confusion between self-care and rest. Me Time really doesn’t give your mind the chance to rest. As new and fresh as the focus on emotions may seem, Eve heard this same suggestion—focus on our enlightenment in order to get what we need. Satan’s promises lead to counterfeit rest and still deceive the weary.
God has a plan to satisfy our need for rest. Any time tension rises outside of God’s ways, the imbalance or outright offense creates awareness and desire to put things right. We feel the need to fix something. Tight muscles, stomach upset, or a short fuse may indicate a need to reclaim rest internally and externally. We have to recapture rest before tension or conflict drains our life away.
Here are 5 truths to correct the combination of current therapeutic thought + Christian lingo making you lose the real rest you’re meant to have.
God’s Ways Lead to Rest
God put man in a garden, but discontentment led to relational conflict and a loss of rest. Romans 1 says we see the impact of God’s wrath “against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” A list of examples of unrighteousness in verses 29 and 30 describe behaviors that create conflict with each other. Sin creates a need for healing. When we don’t “honor God or give thanks to him,” (v. 21) our thinking becomes futile and foolish. Our hearts become “darkened.” Slander, deceit, and arrogance are just a few of the ways foolishness comes out and does damage. Our Creator not only set a precedent for our lifestyle when “he rested from all his work,” (Genesis 2:22-23). The Maker made a way to live leading to restfulness.
Emotions are Indicators not Dictators
God created emotions and models an emotional nature. While feelings are fleeting, they indicate our heart condition. Emotional indicators point to how we’re walking in God’s ways in every way: physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally. When we exchange God’s ways for our own, we fall into the pattern of those who “did not see fit to acknowledge God,” (Roman 1:28) so “God gave them up to a debased mind.” Thank God for emotional cues like disappointment, joy, relief, and anger to help us see correctly and ask for His help to walk in truth. We need discernment to know if we’re living in the way of God’s blessings, guarding against letting emotions keep us from our restful destination. Instead of bringing emotion to the center of our story to dictate our beliefs and actions, God uses emotions to lead us somewhere.
Excuses Are Barriers to Rest and Restoration
Today some therapeutic conversations put the spotlight on the god of emotion. By over-emphasizing the power of fleeting feelings, a hurting person may be encouraged to let emotion endorse making and keeping excuses. This isn’t to say that seeing our feelings and our actions truthfully isn’t necessary getting from hurt to healing. If emotions leave us in our excuse, it can become a barrier to restoration for conflicts and the rest that comes with it.
God says people are “without excuse” in honoring our self as god. His glory is at the center of the story, not ours. When behavior aligns with God’s ways, we enjoy benefits He promises, free from excuses. When our mind is fixed on God’s ways rather than our ways, He keeps us in complete peace (Isaiah 26:3). Excuses create barriers to reaching God’s better results of rest and restoration.
Restoration Trumps Confrontation
Perfect peace doesn’t mean we avoid dealing with life’s dissonance. Perfect peace means God chooses the approach for conflict resolution. Confrontation may help lead to restoration, but our goal is not to rise up in power to judge sin by asserting ourself over it. God takes care of that.
The goal of God’s plan is always restoration, both for the perpetrator and the injured. He calls us to be the lovers of reconciliation, cooperating with Him. He shows us how to do that with His example as the Healer, the Reconciler, the Forgiver, and the Restorer. In fact, “The love of Christ controls us,” (2 Corinthians 5:11-20) not fleeting emotions. Whether it’s laziness or gluttony or impatience, sin is what is confronted to stir up godly remorse leading to confession and growth. God’s kindness leads to repentance (Romans 2:4) in His planned pathway for our growth. Rest comes in dealing with earthly tensions in heavenly ways.
Faith Provides for Rest
Some current therapeutic approaches create skepticism of God’s strategy for rest, suggesting it’s inadequate or uninformed. With this counsel, faith takes a back seat to Me Time. However, Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes,” (1:16).
The gospel is the power of God to experience rest in a messed up world of messed up relationships. “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith,’” (1:17). To “suppress the truth” (1:18) is ungodliness, the thing that robs us of real rest.
Faith allows us to rest. Lifehack.org and a lot of life advice sources today have it wrong: “Me Time” does not give our minds the chance to rest. Emotions do not make good dictators for our decisions. Me Time can actually drain our life and distract from our real need for rest through restoration. The truth is, “for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress … ” (Romans 2:8-9). No rest.
The Gospel Lets Us Rest
Don’t be ashamed of the time-tested gospel approach to finding rest for your soul. Refuse to exchange it as an excuse for Me Time with you at the center of the story. Discern what aligns with God’s truth and what doesn’t. Don’t get sucked into believing rest comes when we speak truth as we feel it. The God who made our emotions and told us to love reconciliation has given us an invitation to rest that satisfies.
“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.” (Matthew 11:28-30) God’s truth is the truth that brings restoration leading to rest.
- Feel like you want to know Jesus but don’t yet? Message me.
- Or feel like you know Jesus but your emotions have you stuck? Message me.
