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.
- We get affirmed for not resting, for being busy, for getting things done, so our identity gets lodged in “productivity.”
- We may not really know what true rest looks like in a culture that confuses leisure and entertainment with restfulness.
It is hard to swim upstream against these sorts of currents.
But we try. We pull aside and aim to slow down. We plan for times away from the grind. We engage in self-care. And yet, we so often struggle to find soul-replenishing, peace-producing rest. The kind of rest that lasts.
Why isn’t our rest restful?
For years, I wrestled with these questions repeatedly. In desperation, I started crying out for God’s perspective on my inability to find lasting, soul-deep rest.
“Why, God? What am I missing?”
Our story-telling God used a 19th-century fairy tale to show me what was going on with my rest quest. The story? Hans Christian Andersen’s The Princess and the Pea.
You know the tale. A bedraggled woman seeks shelter in a castle on a stormy night. We know little about her, except that despite her disheveled appearance, she declares she is a princess. A skeptical queen puts a tiny pea in her mattresses, the girl doesn’t sleep well because of it, and in the morning, she honestly states that fact. Her honesty about her poor sleep reveals a deep sensitivity, thus confirming the girl’s claims to royalty. She was sensitive enough to recognize that something—a very tiny something—had stolen rest from her.
Her sensitivity is the thing I was missing.
The “peas” disrupting my rest were things I had gone so long without noticing, I had lost my sensitivity to them. And every one of them was making my rest in Christ very, very difficult.
So what are these peas? They are untruthful beliefs and lenses I viewed the world through. They are based on lies and loud voices that war against restful relationship with Christ. They are little lumps of unrest and idolatry, traps and tricks filled with falsehood and misdirection.
In my case the peas in my metaphorical mattresses are literally thin
gs that start with the letter P—pride, performing, people-pleasing, protection, pain-avoidance, productivity… the list goes on, but you get the point.
God showed me that I could be trying to rest on piles of mattresses—pursuing all sorts of things that promise refreshment. But as long as I was not attending to the peas lurking in my life, I was going to be robbed of what I so desperately longed for.
Then He started showing me ways to identify and reject the Ps that had been stealing not only my rest, but my joy, my hope, and my peace.
I discovered true rest doesn’t come from mastering self-help techniques or the ironic quest of “working harder” to find rest. Rest comes in and through Jesus, through relationship and trust in the One who has carried all our sin to the cross and who is willing to bear our every burden as we yoke our lives to His (Matthew 11:28-29).
Rest becomes much easier when we allow Him to lead us to see the things that steal our intimacy with Him. Rest becomes easier when we surrender our burdens into His capable and caring hands.
I have been walking (stumbling often) with God to recognize and remove the rest-robbing Ps in my life. He has been shaping me with insights from this Princess and the Pea metaphor for nearly a decade now, helping me develop sensitivity to the things that steal true rest. By His grace, I have come into deeper and deeper places of trust in the One who has given everything for me.
Much wars against the rest you and I seek. But none of those things are bigger than our mighty and powerful God. He is a safe and sure refuge from the storms of unrest in our world. Pursuing Jesus is the highest and best quest you will ever take. He is the answer to your search for rest. God changes us through union with His Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit living in the heart of every believer.
As the 4th century church father St. Augustine wrote, “You have made us for Yourself, Oh Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
May you find more of Him.