Rest and Play
A few nights ago as I was watching my Lakers destroy the Orlando Magic in the NBA Finals, they showed an interview between Dwight Howard, the current superstar player on the Magic, and Bill Russell, the greatest champion ever to play the game of basketball. Russell won 11 championships in his day, more than anyone else—ever. So the wise sage Russell was dispensing his wisdom to the young star Howard, hungry for greatness. And instead of the usual advice that you would expect of ‘work hard’ and ‘never give up’ etc., Bill Russell said something that arrested my attention. He said, “After I won a championship, I wouldn’t touch a basketball for a month. You’ve got to let your body rest.”
This wasn’t what Howard wanted to hear and so he shot back, “I can’t do that, then that would mean somebody else is going to be working harder than me.” Russell calmly and confident replied, “No, if you want to be great, you’ve got to let your body rest and forget the game of basketball for awhile”.
There is something deeply true about what Russell is saying, and it holds true far beyond the basketball court. Rest, relaxation, and replenishment are essential parts of a healthy rhythm of life. God built rest into creation in the seasons. There is a time to plant, a time to harvest, and a time to let the ground lie fallow to replenish nutrients. If you over plant a field, you will have smaller yields. Solomon tells us this in,
Ecclesiastes 3:1-4
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
God himself modeled rest to us in his creation of the world, by resting on the 7th day. God didn’t rest because he was so tired that he needed a break. No, that would be heresy. God modeled rest for us in order to demonstrate that rest is not for the weak, it is not for the weary, it is an essential part of healthy life.
God then commanded that His people rest, by giving them a them a Sabbath. A Sabbath day was one day out of seven that people couldn’t do any work at all, not even cooking. They just had to rest. Think about how much harder of a command this is to people that are surviving off of the land that they are working themselves. Today if we are hungry, we go to the store and buy a frozen dinner. They had to grow and harvest their food. So when God says, take one day a week off, that is costly to them. Yet rest is so important that God commands it and structures it into the rhythm of life for His people.
Are you getting even one day a week totally off? One day completely free from the demands of work and school and obligation? You’ve got to fight for this, because the way that we live life today takes a fight to get true rest. But even if we get a day of two off, most of us don’t know how to take a day off. Does having a day to yourself conjure images of how much you could get done on your house? Or how many errands you could run? Or how many things you could check off your to do list?
To truly replenish ourselves, we need 3 things: rest, recreation, and spiritual reflection.
- Rest- we need to physically rest and allow our bodies and minds to rebuild. You simply cannot get more done by never stopping to rest. You will be much more productive if you are not burning yourself out but trying harder and harder.
- Recreation- we need to play. Life is a gift from God and it is meant to be fun and enjoyable. If you never stop being productive and start enjoying life around you, you are missing out on a huge purpose of God for your life. Sometimes we feel guilty about having fun, like we’re “on the clock” and God is going to be angry if we’re goofing off. Well, we are always “on the clock” in terms of living our whole life in the service of God, but the good news is that to He wants us to laugh, to play in the sunshine, to enjoy the goodness of the life He’s given to us.
- Spiritual Reflection- We need to take time to connect with God and reflect upon what God is doing in our lives. If we never do this, then we are going to miss all the lessons that God is trying to teach us in the classroom of life. Chances are God is trying to teach you something through the circumstances of your life right now, through your relationships, through your hardships. If we never stop and reflect, we’ll miss the meaning in the motion of life.
I’ll leave you with the wisdom of an old monastic parable, recounted by one of favorite Christian writers, Joan Chittister:
One day a hunter in the desert saw Abba Anthony enjoying himself with the brethren and he was shocked. What kind of spiritual guide was this?
But the old monk said to him, “Put and arrow in your bow and shoot it.” So the hunter did. Then the old man said, “Now shoot another.” And the hunter did. Then the elder said, “Shoot your bow again. Keep shooting; keep shooting, keep shooting.” And the hunter finally said, “But if I bend my bow so much I will break it.”
Then Abba Anthony said to him, “It is just the same with the work of God. If we stretch ourselves beyond measure, we will break. Sometimes it is necessary to meet other needs.” When the hunter heard this he was struck with remorse and, greatly edified by Anthony, he went away. As for the monastics there, they went home strengthened.
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