rwrites

Walking through: Anxious / Restless

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The Promise
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The Habit
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One Next Obedience

Learning to Rest

If control is the false god and worry is the liturgy, then rest is the first act of rebellion. Not rest as collapse — rest as trust. Here's where we begin.

Read the skim version
The Lie: Rest is earned, not given.
The Cost: You wait for a permission to rest that never comes.
The Better Word: 'He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.' — Psalm 23:2-3
One Next Step: This week, choose one evening where you stop working by 7pm. Do something that has no productive value. Go for a walk. Sit on your porch. Call a friend with no agenda.

If control is the false god and worry is the liturgy, then rest is the first act of rebellion.

Not rest as escape. Not rest as collapse after you have finally finished everything (you never will). But rest as trust. Rest as a practice that says: I am not the one holding this together, and I can stop acting like I am.

Why rest feels so hard

For the anxious person, rest is not relaxing. It is terrifying. Because rest means letting go of the monitoring. It means accepting that things might happen while you are not watching, and that this is okay.

This is why you cannot just "take a break." The moment you try, your mind fills with everything you should be doing. Rest, for the anxious, is not an absence of activity. It is the presence of trust.

One next obedience

The Christian tradition has a word for this: Sabbath. It is not a suggestion. It is a commandment. And it is the strangest commandment in the whole Bible — stop. Stop working. Stop managing. Stop earning.

Sabbath is God saying: "I know you think you have to keep going. You don't. Let me show you."

You do not need to master Sabbath. You just need to begin. Here are three small practices:

1. The evening boundary

Choose one evening this week. Set a time — 7pm, 8pm, whatever works. When that time comes, stop. No email. No planning. No productive activity. Do something useless and good. Walk. Sit. Talk to someone you love without an agenda. Let the undone things stay undone until morning.

2. The morning delay

Tomorrow morning, before you check anything — email, news, messages — sit quietly for five minutes. You do not have to pray eloquently. You can simply say: "I am not in charge today. You are." Then check your phone.

3. The weekly inventory

At the end of each week, write down three things that went well that you did not control. Three good things that happened without your management. This is a practice of noticing grace — training your eyes to see that the world does not depend entirely on your vigilance.

The better word

The promise of control says: "You are safe only if you are watchful."

The better word says: "He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep." (Psalm 121:4)

Someone is already watching. Someone who does not grow weary. You are invited to rest — not because you have earned it, but because you were never meant to carry what you have been carrying.

That is the good news for the anxious heart. Not "try harder to relax." But "there is someone stronger than you, and he is awake, and you can sleep."

Reflection Questions

  1. 1.What would you do with an evening where nothing was required of you?
  2. 2.Do you believe rest is something you deserve, or something you have to earn?
  3. 3.What is one small, concrete practice of rest you could begin this week?
  4. 4.Who could you tell about this practice, to help you follow through?

One Next Step

This week, choose one evening where you stop working by 7pm. Do something that has no productive value. Go for a walk. Sit on your porch. Call a friend with no agenda.

You have finished this walk. Take your time with the practice above.

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