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Self-Care

Earnest Rest Reveals God's Favor

Earnest Rest Reveals God’s Favor

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Reading time: 3 minutes

Rest makes it possible to perform at your highest level. You probably do your best work when you are relaxed and “in the zone.” Have you experienced this kind of rest? Would you like to learn to enter into the rest God intends for you?

Find Rest By Finding Your Sweet Spot

God made you with an identity which is the place of optimal functioning. This sweet spot is where the least amount of effort still produces the maximum output. Hitting your sweet spot is an honorable goal. God intends for you to feel the pleasure of acting from the center of who you are. If you want to know God’s favor, first you must be free to be yourself.

Sometimes the sweet spot is elusive because of sin and the curse. They cloud and distort who you are. Sometimes you have to do what you don’t particularly want to do. Overcoming the curse requires hard work. The goal isn’t to eliminate your effort, but instead to optimize your effort. You put in your effort while relying on God to carry what you were never meant to carry.

Find Rest By Compartmentalizing Obligation

Do you know what it feels like to pursue what you want instead of what you must (because of obligation or responsibility)? God created the sabbath so you can experience unpressured living at least one day out of seven. The lift you gain from one day of rest can carry into the other six days.

Who are you when you’re under obligation? How do you fill your day to meet the demands of life? Don’t miss this: You’re probably not optimally in touch with your true identity while under obligation. That’s because obligation implies some amount of stress and that changes everything.

Who are you when you’re not under any obligation? Then, how do you live? This is what you can accomplish during productive play. Restful living means entering into a natural high by functioning at the level of God’s highest purposes for you. This is true recreation — an effort that recovers more energy than it spends.

Find Rest By Playing

Fulfilling obligations is necessary. But playing is as important as working. What do you think of when you think of playing? Productive play does not involve low-functioning activities that allow passive living. Your brain can be fully engaged and relaxed during play.

Whatever you do should have a purpose. Some activities can seem like they have no eternal significance, but if they rejuvenate you, they have value. For example, consider watching a movie. What value do you gain from it? Does it uplift or strengthen you? Does it help you to better understand life? Or does it drain you or lead you into sin?

To play is to relax. Some people can’t stop working. Their play is only work in disguise. When you practice relaxing, it will help you when you are under the stress of responsibility. You’ll be able to work more efficiently when you are under stress.

Restful living will be different for each person. What activities bring you more energy as you participate in them? In the movie, Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell says, “When I run, I feel His pleasure.” Even though he’s exerting himself completely he has entered God’s rest. He’s burdened with running, but not burdened with debilitating anxieties.

When God’s power is available genuine play is possible. That’s because He does the heavy lifting. Jesus said:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30

Have you ever felt God’s pleasure? You enter God’s rest and He is right there with you expressing His excitement for who you are. God is your cheerleader. Allow His cheers to propel you forward.

Learn more about play.
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Last Updated 2023/10/15

Increase Motivation By Developing Conviction

Increase Motivation By Developing Conviction

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Reading time: 4 minutes

Convictions produce motivation to accomplish goals. A laundry list of goals is not motivating in itself. To maximize motivation, you need to know how important something is to you and why it is important. When you are motivated from within like this, the motivation cannot easily be taken from you.

What is apathy and what causes it? Apathy is the opposite of motivation. If apathy is a lack of concern, then motivation is concerned enough to act. The energy required to act is worth the effort because the cause matters to you.

Burnout Saps Motivation

Other concepts related to apathy include depression or burnout. Burnout results from attempting something that is beyond your capacity to achieve, refusing to give up, and ignoring self-care. Burnout does not happen overnight. Take a look at this 12 stages of burnout infographic.

People become burned out when the cause is motivating but the goal or timeframe is unrealistic. For example, wanting to feel better self-worth by working harder is a no-win situation. Working harder cannot permanently build self-worth. It might temporarily feel better, but the feeling will wear off when the achievements slow down.

Imbalance Saps Motivation

Becoming overfocused on superficial pursuits can also drain motivation. The activity can be positive like exercise or negative like alcohol consumption. In extreme use, anything can become unhealthy. Anything that becomes a substitute for connecting with God is unhealthy in the long term. That’s because life becomes imbalanced.

Exercise up to a point provides great benefits, but if pushed to an extreme it becomes harmful. The body wears out. The time is not well spent. Other underutilized activities have untapped potential.

In the case of exercise, the effect is directly physical. In the case of stress (burnout), the effect is indirect, but no less demotivating. Hope thrives on seeing results from the effort spent. If nothing you can do will produce results, the situation is hopeless. Progressing in burnout moves toward increasingly diminished margins of return.

What is conviction? It’s not really any different than faith.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1 ESV

Faith is conviction. The most important things in life are the spiritual unseen realities. If you have faith in a bridge, you will cross it. If you are fearful you won’t. Having conviction about the strength of a bridge means you are convinced that the bridge will support your weight. Therefore, you can see that faith leads to motivation and motivation to good works. If you fully believe something is true, how can you not act on what you know?

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

James 2:14-17 ESV

So then, what if you are not motivated? What if your life feels directionless? What if you suffer from apathy or depression? Some situations like losing a loved one or losing a job naturally result in grief. While grieving, people are expected to feel motivated. So there is definitely a time to put activity aside and just be. Aside from grief and a physical health problem, there is a good chance that feeling lethargic is a lack of conviction.

Conviction is faith and faith will always point to some action. Maybe this is what Jesus meant when discussing having even a small amount of faith. The smallest amount of pure faith is largely motivating!

Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, “Why couldn’t we cast out that demon?” “You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.

Matthew 17:19-20 NLT

Learn more about the difference between being stubborn and being tenacious.
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Authentic Sharing Leaves People Blessed

Authentic Sharing Leaves People Blessed

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Reading time: 4 minutes

We thrive when God shares His life with us through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Sharing your life with others might be the best way to encourage someone. Paul describes his desire for mutual edification to the believers in Rome:

One of the things I always pray for is the opportunity, God willing, to come at last to see you. For I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow strong in the Lord. When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours.

Romans 1:10-12 NLT

A testimony is a statement of personal experience. It can’t be refuted, but it is also hard to deny. Testimonies are usually intentional and planned, but casual sharing can be just as effective.

Sharing Your Spirit is a Blessing

Others need your perspective. It can be incredibly encouraging just to hear someone else acknowledge God’s truth as real. God gives us life to share with others. What is more precious than life? Sharing your life is like a supercharged spiritual discipline.

Because we are made in God’s image, we are spirit at our core too. God made us to have some control over what we keep hidden and what we reveal.

For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

John 4:24 NLT

If God invests in revealing who He is to us, we should also spend time revealing ourselves to each other. By sharing ourselves we are also revealing who God is because God lives within us. This kind of spiritual sharing goes beyond sharing physical resources.

God’s Spirit has shown you everything. His Spirit finds out everything, even what is deep in the mind of God.

1 Corinthians 2:10 CEV

To see and know God is eternal life (John 17:3).

Mutual Sharing is Superior

What is motivating you when you share? Interestingly enough, sharing benefits both the speaker and the listener. In most relationships, balanced sharing is more rewarding. Listening can be work but it can also be an act of receiving a blessing. Speaking can be work, for example when someone is teaching, but it can also be advantageous.

The speaker is blessed by knowing that what is shared makes a difference in someone else’s life. Sharing is also important for another more subtle reason: not sharing is unnatural. An example of this is when someone gives another the silent treatment. People become emotionally sick when they cannot share their lives with others.

Even though sharing is beneficial, this doesn’t mean it is healthy to share indiscriminately. Even God reveals Himself only to specific people.

My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

Luke 10:22 NLT

Some people have no interest or use for God’s words. They do not understand. They do not know eternal life. God says that you don’t have to waste your time with these people. But there are plenty of others who are poor in spirit. They want to hear the words of truth. They are hungry for the life you have flowing within you.

Don’t give to dogs what belongs to God. They will only turn and attack you. Don’t throw pearls down in front of pigs. They will trample all over them.

Matthew 7:6 CEV

Too often people are taught to not be selfish and to listen more than speak. But if everyone followed this advice, no one would be talking! I encourage you to intentionally seek a balance in your relationships. Both speaking and listening are powerful blessings.

When you speak, be deliberate about sharing the best parts of your spiritual life. What has God been doing in your heart? When you are listening to others, realize they are sharing the “pearls of the kingdom” with you. You are treading on holy ground. Be respectful of this blessing.

Speak and listen with all of your heart.

Learn about overcoming shame.
Learn about the limits of self-revelation.
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Grieving Frees You From A Trapped Life

Grieving Frees You From A Trapped Life

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Reading time: 6 minutes

I’ve discovered that grieving is a way to become unstuck. It’s a process of coming to accept what seems unacceptable. It changes you for the good, but it leaves you different.

Can you remember a time when you felt stuck? Perhaps you wanted to change but weren’t sure who or what would help. Maybe you had already tried many solutions. I have been there many times.

You can only experience something for the first time once in your life. Once you experience it, you are changed. Those second and following experiences aren’t the same. Consider—the first bite of that heavenly dessert or that first sip of refreshingly cold water on a scorching hot day. Though you may finish the rest, it won’t be the same as the first.

Life is like a series of gates you go through. The gates are one-way doors. After you go through them, you can’t go back. All you can do is view the past from a distance. Here are three reasons why you should become better at grieving.

Grieving Helps You Let Go of Regrets

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

2 Corinthians 7:10 ESV

It’s better to realize too late that you could have handled a situation better than to never realize it at all. How many times have you wished for a do-over?

Sometimes life can feel like a rushing river is escorting you through the gates faster than you want to go. As you careen downstream, you hit some rocks; there isn’t time to catch your breath. You can feel trapped because rivers don’t flow backward.

Is there no way to go back so you can erase your mistakes? If you can’t make it so it never happened, is there any point in dwelling on it?

Godly grief allows you to move forward into a new way of living that embraces God’s ability to make all things work for good (Romans 8:28). But to move forward, you must revisit the past. You can’t change the past, but you can change yourself. Grieving allows you to see your mistakes and sit with them for a time. This is important because it gives the past proper significance. It is natural and understandable for us to want to quickly forget about the pain, but when we do, we miss the depth of recovery.

Grieving gives you time to receive God’s words of forgiveness and healing. Worldly grief keeps you stubborn and unwilling to accept God’s help—you are sorry to be stuck, but don’t want to do the hard work to heal. People stuck in worldly grief, even if their pain goes away, have nothing to show for their time. They don’t care about learning a lesson.

Grieving Helps You Wait For God

Sometimes life can feel like a riverbed that dried up so long ago you can’t remember when. The gate in front of you seems to be permanently blocked. You think you are ready to move on, but God has other plans and says “wait.” He wants you to linger where you are for a while. You feel trapped because you can’t move forward into the future, the past seems irrelevant, and the present is boring or painful.

But during this time, you make the effort to learn that God is sufficient for all your needs.

Deep in my heart I say, “The Lord is all I need; I can depend on him!

The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

It is good to wait patiently for the Lord to save us.

Lamentations 3:24 (CEV) 25 (ESV) 26 (CEV)

The way forward won’t be closed forever. If you find that it is currently closed, then there’s more to do in this chapter of your life before you move on to the next.

While you are waiting, you can seek God by asking Him to accomplish His plans in your life so you can eventually open the door. Tell Him how you feel a deep sense of frustration because you can’t reach the future you desire. Ask God to reveal what important task remains to be accomplished.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Matthew 7:7-8 NIV

Allow God to meet you here. This might be a time to be fully in the present moment and to cultivate contentedness. Slow down and enjoy the time you have now. After you move forward, you’ll only be able to return through your memories.

Grieving Helps You Step Through the Open Door

Sometimes life can feel like you are on a calm lake but you are approaching a waterfall. You fear for your survival. The way forward is dreadful. You’d rather enjoy the serenity of the lake.

Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

Ecclesiastes 7:10 ESV

Most people think of grieving as coming to accept a loss, but longing for the so-called “good ol’ days” is also a form of grieving. With each passing gate, a melancholy nostalgia can build. The older you are, the more there is that will never be again.

The older I get, the more I realize that I won’t be able to accomplish everything on my to-do list. Prioritization matters at every age, but its value becomes abundantly clear later in life.

Grieving is a process that can transform you as you sort through memories and bring closure to them. If the past seems to be the happiest you will ever be, think again! Prepare your heart for what else God has in store for you. Passing by the old things also means God is doing something new right now and He will do even more tomorrow.

For I am about to do something new.
    See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
    I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.

Isaiah 43:19 NLT

What body of water best describes your current season of life? Remember that God is a masterful gatekeeper. Allow Him to guide you through the wilderness with all He provides. Seek wisdom from God (see Ecclesiastes 7:8-14 for more insight into grieving).

Read more about 3 Steps to Achieve Healthy Grieving
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Updated and Expanded July 10, 2022

The Secret to Finding Rest Amidst Tragedy

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Does it make sense to pursue rest when you are flooded with the trauma of betrayal? Experiencing the disloyalty of another person is painful and disorienting, maybe more than any other life event. Is rest even possible given the chaotic disruption to your sense of peaceful well-being?

Have you ever seen a dog chase its tail? So much energy is spent pursuing a goal that remains unattainable. It’s fun to watch unless you’re the one going in circles.

What is the worst traumatic experience you’ve been through? If you can’t think of anything, you are either very lucky or very disconnected from reality. How easy or hard was it for you to rest in the days and weeks after the trauma occurred?

Or maybe you are in the middle of trying to recover from a horrifying event. It has left you locked into an unending sense of discouragement, distress, or despair. Your thoughts speed around a racetrack, circling ever faster but generating only mental exhaustion.

After being traumatized, it is normal to become disillusioned and want to know why life can be so confusing and difficult. Why did that bad thing happen? Why did you make an unhealthy choice? Why does there seem to be no way forward?

Trust to Find Rest

These questions are all signs of life. You are seeking some deeper answer, meaning, or connection with God. There is good news: answers exist that bring hope instead of despair. But the answers usually come in the context of a growing trust in God, rather than an immediate blessing of good fortune and circumstances.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV

Don’t try to solve problems that are “beyond your pay grade.” Trusting in God brings instant relief (Isaiah 26:3). Try it. Think of something you are anxious about. Now tell God you trust Him. Even if you have to imagine you are trusting Him, it helps. The burden shifts off your shoulders and onto God’s.

I’m not saying your relief will be complete, instantaneous, and permanent. You can experience an overall peace while simultaneously agonizing and grieving.

When God asks you to trust Him, He means at all times–whether your circumstances are pleasant or heart-breaking. You can experience betrayal and still look to God for security.

God wants us to:

  • believe He is good while experiencing pain
  • live in the reality of heaven even while experiencing a cursed earth

How you experience life depends on how you prioritize your perspective. Are you focused on your pain or on your God? Are you caught in a loop of trying to escape something you cannot change? Are you caught believing a temporary circumstance is permanent? If so, I have a prayer for you.

Pray to Find Rest

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

Reinhold Niebuhr

This prayer is profound. It shares a lot in common with Proverbs 3. Most people stop with the first sentence. But the second sentence contains the secret to finding rest: acceptance and trust. What are some ways you can adjust your expectations of life, creating some space for you to rest in God’s understanding?

Be patient with yourself as you work through betrayal and learn to trust. You can’t heal in isolation. You need to know someone is hearing your pain.

Read about living free of worry.
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How To Grow More Confident

How To Grow More Confident

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Reading time: 3 minutes

Who wants to be confident? Everybody does That’s because possessing confidence means you have resilience, reliability, and strength. We are all familiar with what its opposite involves: self-doubt, insecurity, and discouragement. The cost of a lack of confidence is high.

So, why aren’t more people brimming over with confidence? Because it comes with a price. Are you willing to endure whatever it takes to gain this sense of peace and security?

To become strong, you first need to be more fully in touch with the ways you are weak. How aware are you of how you are doing emotionally? Fortunately, there is a shortcut to finding and building your endurance and confidence.

Listen To Your Body To Grow Confident

When I go running for more than a few minutes, my focus changes. As fatigue sets in, I have to motivate myself to keep going. I become more aware of the finish line. How much farther do I have to go? Will I be able to make it without stopping?

Fatigue can result in discouragement or you can allow it to produce a determination to keep going. When I become fatigued while running, it’s nearly impossible not to notice the strain on my body. But what is more interesting is how my physical health and my emotional health are linked.

God made our brains to store similar experiences together. Running triggers my brain to focus on the theme of whatever is desperately concerning me. When my body protests because of the physical strain, my brain brings my most serious emotional concerns into my awareness. I become flooded with what matters most to me. The thoughts can be obstacles on my path to a life well-lived.

Test Your Limits To Grow Confident

To grow in endurance, you have to test your limits. The testing identifies weak areas that need strengthening. Growth is stressful, usually requiring an upfront investment for a future payoff. Growth costs you your immediate state of relaxation.

When we can trust God with this process, the value of the reward far exceeds the stress.

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

Romans 5:1-5 NLT

God is saying your problems and trials lead to a satisfying, secure, and confident hope. The development of character is the proof of your salvation–your entrance into heaven and eternal life. Furthermore, a heart full of love has no room for fear.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

1 John 4:18 NIV

The next time you want to feel better, try wearing yourself out exercising (or whatever works for you). Then note what surfaces in your mind. That could be an area of weakness that God is working on so you can feel more confident.

We can see life as a painful struggle, but God sees it as endurance training. And endurance results in many good things such as peace, confidence, and character.

Read more about confidence.
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Last Edited 2023/01/29