Not just relaxed but replenished

Now that was a good weekend! Yard-work, a refreshing day of rain, a speaking engagement, dynamic worship at church with a couple of favorite nieces and nephew sharing the pew, Father's Day lunch with my dad, a good conversation with Andrew in Bahrain, and a long lazy evening watching U.S. Open golf from Pebble Beach.

The result of a great weekend is waking up Monday morning refreshed and ready to go. Not just relaxed by replenished.

There is a pervasive misunderstanding about the idea of rest that leaves too many of us ill-equipped to engage Mondays with the kind of creative energy that's necessary to impact the world in the right way. We stop, take-a-load-off, unwind, "veg" (vegetate), and take it easy. And that's all good. But what we fail to do is to replenish, restore, reinvigorate, renovate, re-tool, renew, repair, reanimate, recover and redeem. We need refreshment sometimes more than we need rest.

Yes, I know, that's a lot of "r" words. But they're "r" words that all point to a critical aspect of personal and corporate faith that we too easily sidestep if we're not careful.

How many people, for example, stay away from church on a Sunday morning because they're "too tired", "over-extended" or "need a rest"? When the truth is that church is exactly the place to be when we are stressed, burned-out, weary or in turmoil.

Jesus invited tired people into his presence because replenishment was at the top of his agenda. "Come to me, all of you who are tired and are carrying heavy loads. I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). I like the way the passage reads in The Message - "Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest."

Weekend rest doesn't go nearly far enough. But the replenishment I receive when I spend Sunday with my community of faith restores the source of my life. Creativity on a Monday morning isn't such a stretch in the context of such grace.

Peace - and restoration - DEREK