As go-getters and good people, we tend to give so much of ourselves to our loved ones, our mission, our work, our church and community. And it’s so easy to think we can keep going even when we’re physically tired. But we cannot. We need to deliberately make out the time to rest and regroup physically.
Now, wouldn’t it be great to be able to take a vacation or have a retreat? Having no care and sleeping in a bed you didn’t lay, eating food you didn’t cook, really resting away from typical daily distractions…but that may not be immediately possible for a lot of reasons.
That’s why I want to share a few ways that you can get some rest without causing too much of a disruption to your everyday life.
1. You can sleep in for the next few days. Set your alarm clock to one to two hours later than your regular time and just get more sleep. Those extra hours will add up.
If there are things you typically do in the morning, you can ask a sibling, spouse, colleague or friend to help you with them. It’s just for a few days. If you need to get some permission to get in to work later than normal or work from home, try to do it.
If you find it really hard to sleep in in the morning, you can try going to bed early. Really early, like a couple of hours before your regular time. It will have the same effect.
2. It’s okay to stay away from some online meetings. Another area that consumes time and energy but which we may not easily consider are online meetings.
Hey, you’re permitted not to show up for every church meeting, development programme, coaching programme or prayer meeting. Ever since Covid-19 hit the world last year, many programmes have gone online. This is great and convenient. But it also gives one the illusion of being able to be a part of it all. We can be absent from some of them and life would still be awesome.
3. Delegate a major task. We all have one or two regular tasks that tend to take a lot of time and energy in the course of a week. It may be cooking, grocery shopping, laundry, running errands or something else.
You can creatively shift the work to someone else. For someone who spends a lot of time and energy cooking, for example, just this time, you can get someone to do the cooking or just buy bowls of soups or meals.
If you really need to rest, I hope you’ll try one of these tips; it will make a good difference in your health, your happiness, and your general wellbeing.
Let me remind you that The Father loves you and He doesn’t want you eating the bread of toil. You are His beloved and He gives you sleep (Psalm 127:2).
You can take a break to rejuvenate. You’ll be at your best and everyone will be the better for it. It will also serve as a reminder to help you to see that things can still run well when you’re not always at the centre of it all.
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