How to Really Rest in the Midst of the Ever-Changing Busy

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Do you ever feel like you’re running backwards, everything hard, every action full of friction? You try to move forward, but each step seems to take you nowhere. You try to rest but your mind won’t still. The busyness in which we are immersed changes faces but the pace remains unsustainable. How can one really rest in the midst of the ever-changing busy?

Because really, how often are we less busy versus just a different kind of busy? Somehow it’s easier to add things to our lives than to subtract all but what matters most. It’s counter-intuitive to think like the Essentialist Greg McKeown describes as one who “produces more—brings forth more—by removing more instead of doing more.”

So what do we need to take away in order to really find the rest our souls need?

What do we need to cull in order to create a path of less friction?

What do we need to say “no” to in order to settle into a pace that fills us with peace?

Perhaps we can start here:

1—Stop trying to live like God without Him

I’m guilty of sometimes trying to replicate the effect of proximity to Jesus without actually spending time in His presence. But it doesn’t work. It equates to us working for what He gives freely, and in pursuing the outward appearance of the Christian life rather than inviting Him to work inside us, we find we’ve gone far in the wrong direction. We don’t feel His nearness because we’ve wrapped ourselves round tight with activities and rules and more doing, doing, doing. We’ve worked hard but find ourselves tangled up in all the busy.

2 Cor. 3:12 reminds us that “with this amazing hope living in us, we step out in freedom and boldness to speak the truth” (TPT). It begins with Him living inside us. He is the One who unleashes freedom and boldness. 2 Cor. 317 reiterates this truth:

Now, the “Lord” I’m referring to is the Holy Spirit, and wherever he is Lord, there is freedom.

TPT

God doesn’t stop bringing us into freedom when we let Him in—it’s us who often stops Him at the entrance. We leave Him waiting and go to work ourselves. As we unpacked a couple weeks back, the only way it works out is to stop working it out ourselves and let Him do the work.

Another verse that serves as a poignant reminder to let God be God within us is 2 Cor. 4:7, which in the TPT reads,

We are like common clay jars that carry this glorious treasure within, so that the extraordinary power will be seen as God’s, not ours.

He is the treasure. We have only to pursue Him as the most priceless treasure, and let Him be Himself within us, not try to live like God without Him.

2—Stop giving up.

When all the things fill our plate and we’re drowning in the busy, it’s tempting just to throw in the towel. To accept the pace and the lack of peace as the norm and settle in as best as we can. To see all the reasons we can’t and shouldn’t and could never, instead of meeting daily with the One who empowers us to keep going.

Yet He is the reason why we can walk forward in faith instead of away from the “author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2 KJV). The NIV describes Him as the “pioneer and perfector of faith,” and the TPT phrases the whole of verse 2 this way:

We look away from the natural realm and we focus our attention and expectation onto Jesus who birthed faith within us and who leads us forward into faith’s perfection. His example is this: Because his heart was focused on the joy of knowing that you would be his, he endured the agony of the cross and conquered its humiliation, and now sits exalted at the right hand of the throne of God!

Look to the world and we will quickly feel overwhelmed. But be overwhelmed instead with Him as we look to Him in joyful expectation and our faith will be strengthened so we can keep pressing on and pressing in.

2 Corinthians 4:16 encourages us with this:

So no wonder we don’t give up. For even though our outer person gradually wears out, our inner being is renewed every single day.

TPT

It’s the paradox of Kingdom living—that the more we give, the more He fills. He speaks life into void, multiplies the little into a lot. He is faithful to provide what we need to keep growing more like Him.

3—Stop living on autopilot.

Have you ever stopped in the middle of something and realized you were doing it with very little thought? As Greg McKeown shares in Essentialism, “according to researchers at Duke University, nearly 40 percent of our choices are deeply unconscious.” The problem, even more than the moments we live not fully present in our actual lives, is that many of the habits we’ve created are not essential. Perhaps many of them are even detrimental. Yet we remain stuck like a track playing on repeat all.

We’re weighed down in the busyness of keeping up with all the things because it feels easier to change nothing than to sort through whether all the things are really doing anybody much good.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can enter our day with intention, focusing our attention on Him. And everything will come into clearer focus.

We can start with one small change at a time and keep practicing until we form new habits. We can savor the small moments rather than rushing through them. We can put the most important things back in their rightful place and stop feeling guilty about doing less of the less-important things.

There is a pace that doesn’t conflict with peace. And it begins and ends with Him.

A prayer when you need to really rest

Jesus, I’m done trying to live out my faith on my own. I need You. I welcome Your presence in the everyday moments of my life. Teach me to walk in step with You because when You lead I can really rest no matter how busy my life is. Thank you for renewing me each daily. With Your help, I’ll face the rest of today with my attention on You so I can live with intention rather than defaulting to autopilot. In Your precious and holy name, Lord, I pray. Amen.

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