about rest and time

The above picture is the view from much of my past weekend: book. mug of coffee. couch. rest. 

I am such a socialite.

But seriously - rest is important to me.  It is something I defend and carve out time for.  When life gets busy the way it's felt the past few weeks, it's something I feel I deserve and need and will sacrifice many other things in order to get.

I've been slowly reading some stories of Jesus' interactions with different people in the gospels, and for a few weeks I've been on the story where Jesus comes face to face with a possessed man and heals him.  It took about eight straight days of reading the same passage for this line to stick out to me:

"And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. "

After I've worked a long day, I can hardly muster the energy to make a phone call to a friend on my drive home.  And Jesus, who had just enacted his power over the waters of the sea to calm a storm, and then traveled by boat after that whole tiring ordeal, gets to shore and IMMEDIATELY he is met by someone needing his attention.

There is zero "me" time in this scenario.

It might sound trivial, but this has convicted me.  Yes, rest is important and Jesus took time to be alone and recharge-- but it wasn't more important than being available.  It wasn't so important that he carved it out and demanded that he deserved it and could only do God's work on his own schedule.

There are many times when I feel that I am selfish with my time.  I say no to opportunities or to requests or to things that could be beneficial to others because I'd rather spend my day doing something for me.  If something pops up out of the blue, well then I can just make the excuse that it is inconvenient and I didn't schedule for it.

Maybe it isn't rest that you guard with your time, but I bet that there is some sliver of your life that you set aside as "yours", untouchable, not to be diverted or distracted or given to someone else.  And isn't it challenging and humbling, when we realize that if we want to follow the example Jesus set, our time really isn't just for us?