Stop Trying so Hard

I did something crazy this morning. I slept in until 8:42am.

I never do that.

I’ll admit, I did take 2 Sudafed’s last night, because of the cold I am developing. It’s the cold that is caused by the cold air blowing vent at my work. I felt it creeping up during my shift yesterday. I thought about complaining to Engineering about it. But it takes too long for them to answer the phone. So I took 2 Sudafed’s instead. I made sure it was the non-drowsy kind. I don’t think it matters, though. It’s all just a marketing ploy to get you to buy 2 kinds of Sudafed. Drowsy and non-drowsy. They’ll both knock you out cold.

But I can’t totally blame the Sudafed. I just simply opened my eyes at 6:23am, rolled over, and went back to sleep until close to nine o’clock! Yikes.

I feel decadent, lush, heavenly, glorious.

It’s a little ironic because I lead a life that would allow me to sleep in. I’m an ER doctor. I rarely have to set the alarm clock. And I often work late, a great excuse to sleep in. But my mother’s voice echoes loudly in my head at the wee hour of 7am. “You’re still sleeping, Lina? Get up and get going. We’re a working family here. Early to bed, early to rise” and all that jazz. By 7am, most of my family has already conquered the western world.

So it felt like I did something just a little bit crazy today.

And it got me appreciating God in a new way.

The Sabbath was his idea after all. And perhaps he didn’t mean for Adam and Eve to completely waste the day tucked in a baboon leaf in the garden of Eden. I’m sure he meant for them to talk and journal and take a walk singing praise choruses and looking up into the heavens for His face.

But rest he insisted they do.

And rest he insists we do.

I love this verse in Isaiah 30:15. It says “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

Stop trying, stop striving, stop planning and plotting and stewing and brewing.

Stop worrying and wanting and pacing and fretting.

Stop talking.

Stop.

And rest.

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