When was the last time you unplugged from your regular life and took refuge in the rhythms and rest of God? I highly recommend it.

It isn't always easy to find ways to do this, but the effort is absolutely worth it.

I’ve shared previously about how God drew me to Isaiah 30 in 2014. I have returned to this passage again and again over the years. Studying this chapter has transformed me in many ways. Today I want to share three of the most meaningful.

We must learn to recognize the things that rob us of rest.

As God began teaching me more about returning and resting in Him, He began to reveal to me more about the rest-robbers in my life and how to release them. He started shining a light on the Ps in my heart—things stealing my rest and trust in Him.

An old saying that dates to the Middle Ages identifies three significant obstacles to our resting in relationship with Christ: “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” The Bible affirms all three. It teaches we live in a fallen, broken world. We are born with a sin nature longing to put us instead of God on the throne of our lives. We also have an enemy who seeks to destroy our relationship with God. 

Why does finding rest feel so hard?

There are some obvious reasons:
- We live in an instant-gratification, more-is-more, hyper-stimulating world. When we live in an environment with no “off” switch, it is hard to say “no” because it doesn’t seem like anyone else is.

The story of Return and Rest begins more than a decade ago, in the summer of 2014. I was parenting and homeschooling my two sons, who were nine- and six-years-old at the time. I had recently taken on a leadership role in Classical Conversations, a national home education organization we were part of.