The alarm went off at 3 a.m. this morning. I had an early flight, and as usual, I hadn’t slept well. I’m a nervous traveler, and when I know I have to get up early, I wake up and check the clock over and over, convinced I’ll oversleep.
Still, I made it to the airport on time, and before most people were even out of bed on Sunday morning, I was already in the air. I like traveling on Sundays. Not because I want to miss church, but because God often speaks to me on long flights. When it’s just Him and me, and I can’t distract myself with the usual busyness, my mind settles in a way it doesn’t on the ground.
Somewhere over the clouds, I opened my Kindle and prayed silently, Lord, give me my Sabbath, even if it looks a little unconventional today. I began reading about God as the Good Shepherd, how He makes us lie down in green pastures. That phrase caught me. Why would anyone have to be made to lie down in a green pasture? It sounds so peaceful, wouldn’t anyone choose to lie down in a green pasture? But then I thought about our hurried world, about how quickly we fill every moment with noise. Maybe the truth is, He has to make us stop, because we won’t on our own.
Passengers continued to board onto our plane, and an older woman, probably in her eighties, took the seat in front of me. Her hair hinted that she might have once been a redhead. I caught myself wondering how long it would be before that was me. At forty-eight, I’m still young, but if I’m honest, I probably have about thirty years left on this earth. It’s a sobering thought, more years behind me than ahead, and it made the little worries of today feel so small.
A layover brought me to Idaho before noon. My hotel room wasn’t ready yet, so I wandered into a little bear-themed diner and ordered a fantastic barbecue hamburger. As I ate, I thought of my kids and how much they would have loved the place. And I found my thoughts returning to that question: What do I want to do with the time I have left? So often, I let my mind be consumed with work problems, people problems, relationship problems. But am I really focused on what matters to God’s Kingdom? Am I spending my days on the things that will matter in eternity? Lately, the only thing that’s been on my mind is work problems, and this particular Sunday was no exception. When will I start to worry about things that are truly important?
Back at the hotel, my room was finally ready. I thanked the front desk clerk for getting it cleaned early and headed straight for the bed. I was exhausted from my restless night, the work stress, and the early flight. Let me tell you, the moment I laid down, I fell asleep.
Four hours later, I woke up. Four hours. I never nap like that. But today, my body simply gave in. And maybe that’s exactly what God wanted. Just like the Good Shepherd in Psalm 23, He had made me lie down in a green pasture, except mine was a quiet hotel bed in Idaho. I got my Sabbath rest after all, just as I’d asked.
Rest in the Wilderness
In 1 Kings 19, Elijah had just come off the most stunning display of God’s power in his lifetime. On Mount Carmel, he faced down hundreds of false prophets, called on the name of the Lord, and watched fire fall from heaven. The people had seen it. The false prophets had been defeated. God’s glory had been on full display.
But battles, even when victorious, can leave us drained. And that’s when the enemy moved in.
Jezebel, the queen of Israel and wife of King Ahab, was no ordinary opponent. She had a long history of violence and ruthless determination. When she heard what Elijah had done, she didn’t send an army. She didn’t bother with strategy. She sent a single message, a vow: that by this time tomorrow, Elijah would be dead, just like the prophets he had put to death. If her past was any indication, she meant it.
Elijah knew her reputation. This was a woman who followed through. And suddenly, the bold prophet who had stared down kings and called on heaven’s fire was afraid.
Fear is like that, it slips in quickly and, if we let it, it crowds out God. The enemy loves to sneak in when we’re exhausted, when our defenses are down. Elijah forgot to add God to the equation. Instead of remembering the God who had just proven Himself on Mount Carmel, he let Jezebel’s words loom larger than God’s power.
So he ran.
He didn’t just put some distance between them, he fled as far as he could go. Out of the kingdom. Into the wilderness. The man who had stood so strong now wanted nothing more than to disappear.
Finally, when his body could carry him no farther, Elijah stopped. Alone, exhausted, he slumped under the sparse shade of a broom tree. A desert shrub, hardly a comfortable resting spot. His prayer was not one of hope but of surrender: “I have had enough, Lord. Take my life.”
Elijah wasn’t just physically unable to handle the journey ahead, he was mentally unable. Fear had drained his courage, blurred his perspective, and left him without the strength to even imagine moving forward.
But Jezebel wasn’t the only one who could send a messenger. God stepped into Elijah’s isolation with something entirely different: provision. No commands. No rebuke. Just care.
An angel touched Elijah and said, “Get up and eat.” Beside him was fresh bread baking on hot stones and a jar of water. Elijah ate, drank, and fell asleep again.
This wasn’t just kindness, it was strategy. The Lord was redirecting Elijah’s path, and the first step was rest. Rest is restorative, yes, but it can also be redirection.
The angel came a second time, touching him again: “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” And it was. Ahead of him lay forty days and forty nights of travel to the mountain of God. Without rest and nourishment, he could never have made it.
So Elijah ate. He drank. He rested. Within him, something began to shift. His body regained strength. His mind cleared. The grip of fear began to loosen. By the time he set out for Horeb, he was no longer running from Jezebel, he was walking toward God.
That’s the power of God-ordained rest. It doesn’t just refill our energy; it realigns our steps. It takes us from fleeing in fear to moving forward in faith.
The Rest We Really Need
God’s rest is not the same as sleep. We often confuse the two, but there’s a vast difference between a body that needs to shut down for a few hours and a soul that needs to be restored.
I remember the days after my divorce when exhaustion wasn’t just in my body, it was in my bones, my thoughts, my spirit. I could have slept twenty-four hours and still woken up tired. My body might have been motionless under the blankets, but my mind was running marathons. It never stopped, replaying conversations, reliving moments, dissecting what went wrong. The pain played on an endless loop, like a song you can’t turn off. The fear of an unknown future gnawed at me day and night. And no matter how many hours I slept, I opened my eyes in the morning just as weary as when I closed them.
That’s because the kind of rest Jesus promises is something entirely different. When He says, “Come to me… and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28), He’s not offering a quick nap or a weekend getaway. He’s offering a deep, soul-level release. The kind of rest that doesn’t just quiet your body, but silences the constant inner storm.
My afternoon in that Idaho hotel room wasn’t just an unusually long nap, it was peace. Not the kind of peace that comes when all your problems are solved, but the kind that wraps around you in the middle of them. I was alone in that room, but I knew my Savior was there. I could feel His presence as I laid down the things I’d been carrying; every worry, every fear, every piece of anxiety I had been clinging to without realizing it.
He made me lie down. Not just so my body could recharge, but so my heart could unclench and my mind could stop its restless spinning. It was the same Shepherd of Psalm 23 who leads His sheep beside still waters and restores their souls. This was His rest, an invitation to release it all into His hands.
We say we’re tired, but physical tiredness is easy to fix! Close your eyes, get some sleep. What we’re often meaning is that we’re weary. Weary from carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders. Weary from the fears that whisper in the dark. Weary from the expectations, the deadlines, the heartbreaks, and the wounds that never seem to fully heal. That kind of tiredness runs deeper than muscle fatigue; it sits in the soul, and only God can touch it.
I’m not saying don’t seek help for anxiety, or that God doesn’t use many different means to bring rest to His children. He does. He can use counseling, medication, healthy rhythms, community support. But there is a rest that no earthly method can provide, and it comes from the One who knows you best.
He knows the exact weight you’re carrying. He knows what you can handle and what you can’t. He sees the moments when you’re smiling on the outside but falling apart inside. And He doesn’t just watch, He invites.
Come to Me. Give it here. Rest.
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