Rest

What does it mean to live intentionally?  In the past I've often thought that it meant filling my calendar as full as I could and then when I thought I had every possible moment of the day filled to add those last few activities in, penciled in the margins because the rest of the space on the page of my life was stuffed to overflowing.  But have you ever noticed that God doesn't really ask us to have overflowing calendars?

"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

In fact, Jesus called the weary and burdened to him and promised rest.  He told us to learn from Him and we would find rest for our souls. 

Rest....  It's a tantalizing word, isn't it?  Can't you almost taste it like a rich creamy chocolate just begging for you to try it?  But then reality hits and like the diet that keeps us from enjoying the chocolate, our busy calendars keep us from enjoying the rest that God invites us to join Him in.  

Have you ever stopped to think though that every time we say No to rest we are saying No to God?  We become so caught up in the "ought to's" of our calendars that we sacrifice the necessities because we convince ourselves that it's just our sleep or our moment of quiet that we are missing, but in reality is something much bigger.  We find it impossible to say no to people, but we say No and make God wait every time we refuse to take those moments of rest for ourselves. 

In her book Finding Spiritual Whitespace, Bonnie Gray describes those moments as whitespace that God uses to reawaken our souls with rest.  Isn't that a magical thought?  The idea that God cares about us so much that He wants us to take those moments for our soul.

Whitespace has actually become part of our vocabulary at our house since I was introduced to the idea.  We have chore time, family time, dinner time and whitespace time.  It's time that we set aside to invest in ourselves.  It's our moments to connect with God.  It's something that has to be done intentionally though or the hours of the day fill up and we've missed that chance to commune with God in a way that brings us joy.

I should probably warn you though before you start thinking that sounds great!  Time just for me to do whatever I want.  Spiritual Whitespace while a wonderful addition to our lives has also meant we open ourselves up to what God takes those moments of rest to show us about ourselves.  You see, slowing down and just being means that the white noise in our life stops.  The busyness that I can hide behind every other hour of the day isn't there when I stop and let God start to speak through the silence that can be whitespace.

Whitespace moments are the ones that I learn the most about myself, who God wants me to be and the parts of me I still struggle with accepting.  In entering into that relationship where He promises that His yoke is easy and His burden is light, God asks me to let go of the burdens I've taken upon myself to carry.  My faults, failures, other's opinions of me,  He asks for them all to be handed over so He can start to lighten my burden by changing my perception.  It can be a hard and painful process because you see, my yoke has left some chaffed and reddened areas and as with any healing there is pain involved, but then something amazing happens....  I discover one by one as I hand them over that God doesn't have nearly the expectations of me that I had thought....  Oh He still has a lot of things He wants me to do and to be honest some of them scare me, but the difference becomes that He takes so many things off of my plate because He knows what He created me to be.  He doesn't want that overflowing calendar.  He wants me doing a few things that He designed me for well rather than an overflowing calendar full of things that I'm only able to half invest in.

So to answer the question, what does it look like to live intentionally?  For me it means intentionally taking those moments and even hours of whitespace time.  Allowing God to clear my calendar and filling it with those things that He calls me to.  It means saying Yes to God and No to other things that might seem good, but aren't God's best for me.  It means intentionally investing in myself so that I have more to give to others.

So what about you?  Will you allow God to introduce you to the rest that He wants you to know?  Are you willing to introduce whitespace into your calendar so that He can make you into the work of art he designed you to be?  Are you willing to live intentionally?