I've Got Rhythm

There is a rhythm to a single day. And for each of us, we all have our own rhythm. When we like to wake up, when we eat, when we exercise. It’s built into the very fabric of who we are. Because that’s how God made us. We were created during the rhythmic movement of creation. Our cadence of life began at the beginning. However, most of us are more tired than we know at the soul level. We are teetering on the brink of dangerous exhaustion, and we cannot do anything else until we have gotten some rest...we can't really engage [any spiritual disciplines] until solitude becomes a place of rest for us rather than another place for human striving and hard work (Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation).

Most of us live this way. Pushing from one task to the next. We barely stop in between anymore for any kind of reflection. But is that how it’s supposed to be? Probably not. It’s also not how God designed the very rhythm of life. At the very end of the creation narrative, the author writes that the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done (Genesis 2:1-3 NIV).

God finished his work and rested. He built in time to take a break from the work so that we can have an example for our own rhythm. Are we building in time throughout our week to pause? Time to listen to what God would have us do? Time to grow in our relationship with our Heavenly Father? As we rest and build it into our rhythm, we will find ourselves more rejuvenated. We will begin to feel the presence and Spirit of God more fully in life.

The Spirit of God has been moving since the beginning. And as the Spirit was moving over the waters [we ask that your] Spirit come move over us. Come rest on us (Maverick City Music, Rest On Us).