Two Kinds of Rest {and you need both}

Happy Friday Friends!

I hope your week has held more mercies than messes, but if not, grab that cup of coffee (or glass of wine if it’s evening) and settle in for our weekly chat.

We made it to the final week of The Busy Season series… and I have to be honest with you, writing this has been just as much for me as it has been for you.

I am not a busy season person. I like slow mornings and unhurried evenings and days that do not feel like a sprint from the moment my feet hit the floor. And this season of life? It is not that. The calendar is full, the pace is fast, and some days I am just trying to keep up.

But something has been shifting in me as I have written through these weeks with you.

I am learning to look for His goodness in more places. In the golden hour, when the kids are still playing, and I know they should already be in bed. At the late practice, where my eyes are heavy, but watching him do what he loves makes my heart full. Throughout the Tuesday that does not slow down for anyone. He is there, and I am just learning to have eyes for it.

And this week, as we close out this series, I want to talk about the one thing that makes all of it sustainable: rest. Not the kind that requires a perfectly quiet house and an empty calendar. The kind that Jesus actually offers, rest for your soul.

Let’s finish this one together.

Walk With You by Taya

You set the pace, God

So I walk before You

Your Word is a lamp that’s

Guiding my way through

You sent Your Spirit

Said this is the way

So I walk in it

The first line of this verse says it all… “You set the pace, God.” During busy seasons, rest can feel like a faraway, unattainable thing. But as Christians, this does not have to be the case. When we turn to God and let him set the pace for our lives, when we take his yoke upon us, when we learn from him… we find rest for our souls.

We don’t have to move at the pace of this world. We have the choice to look for the way God is leading us instead. This doesn’t mean we can clear our schedules or sit lazily by while the world is turning.

But we get to decide that God will set the pace for getting through our to-do’s. We get to choose to only take on what He has set before us… not what the world places upon us.

And when we walk with him, when we take his yoke, we will find that he helps us carry it. That he lightens our load and offers us rest.

I saved this verse for last on purpose. After four weeks of talking about the busy season, this is where it all lands. And I know you may feel like you’ve read this verse a million times, but trust me, there is always so much richness when you keep digging into the same scripture.

We’ve talked about three different words in this series: remain, abundance, and formed. Each one has taken us deeper into the heart of what we’ve been studying. This week is no different.

This week, we’re looking at the word, you guessed it, rest. And here’s the cool thing: in these two verses, we actually find two different Greek words for rest.

In verse 28, “I will give you rest,” the Greek word anapauō is used. It means to cause someone to cease from labor to recover and collect their strength; to refresh and restore what has been depleted. It’s actually related to the English word “pause.”

In verse 29, “you will find rest for your souls,” the Greek word anapausis is used. This one means a settled state of peace that lives in your soul. It’s not just a pause, it’s a condition. Something that takes up residence in your heart.

Jesus is offering us two beautiful kinds of rest, and they both reside with Him. He’s giving us a place to cease our striving… to literally take a break, recover, and regain our strength. But He’s also offering us something much deeper: a place for our souls to feel content and at peace, which only happens when we walk with Him daily.

I picture it like this.

I’m on a long hike in the mountains. It’s a beautiful day, sunny with a slight breeze. As I trek upward, I can feel myself growing weary. My backpack gets heavy. My water is almost gone. My muscles are starting to burn.

Just when I need it, I spot a bench up ahead. Jesus is sitting there, patting the place beside Him, inviting me to rest with Him; to let Him refill my water, restore my strength, take my backpack. To unload every anxious thought I’ve been carrying about how much further I have to go, whether I can make it, whether I’m even going the right way.

But as I get up to leave, Jesus stands up too. He takes my hand and keeps hiking with me. He walks with me when I’m choosing which path to follow. He smiles at me when I stop to admire His creation. He holds me close when the wind picks up and dark clouds roll in. He offers me peace… not because the trail gets easier, but because I know He’s right beside me. My soul can rest in that.

Two kinds of rest. Both unbelievably necessary. Both only found in Him.

Restoration and peace. Renewal and constant calm. Immediate and forever present.

Here’s what I have to be honest about, though. I know this verse. You do too. And yet somehow, in the middle of this busy season, I have been hiking right past the bench.

Head down, backpack completely full, water long gone, telling myself I’ll rest later. That I’ll sit with Him when things calm down a little. When the lists get shorter. When life feels more manageable.

But here’s the thing about the busy season: it doesn’t just decide to slow down on its own. And while I’ve been power walking past Him, Jesus has been sitting on that bench the whole time. Waiting. Not frustrated. Not checking His watch. Just waiting, and genuinely wanting me to circle back and sit down.

Writing this newsletter was my own act of anapauō, carving out time in a crazy busy season to sit with the Word and actually reconnect with God the way I do in slower months. I came into this week’s word study already desperate for it. I didn’t know exactly where “rest” would take me, but I knew my soul needed it.

Digging into these two Greek words was my reminder that both kinds of rest are within my reach… and I have been neglecting both.

I have permission to sit down with Jesus and let Him refill me, and I should be demanding it of myself. That kind of rest isn’t indulgent. It’s necessary.

And when I get up from that bench, I get to carry His peace with me. I get to let the Holy Spirit have a place in directing my to-do list: in volunteering for field day with a joyful heart, in scrubbing red clay from baseball pants knowing I am serving my family, in giving generously to the teachers who have poured into my boys all year long.

When I walk hand in hand with Him through the end of the school year, He is my peaceful reminder to work for Him, not myself or others.

Bench moments are fought for. They aren’t automatically built into your calendar. You have to choose them, protect them, and sometimes fight for them against every distraction that is louder and more urgent.

And I don’t just want that kind of rest for myself. I want it for my family too. Which means the most important thing I can do is model what it looks like to actually carve out time for it. But I’ll admit, I am not always the best at practicing what I preach with my kids. Steele made sure I knew that the other day.

I had a scab on my knee, and I was picking at it (gross, I know, stay with me). Steele looked over and said, “Mom, you shouldn’t be doing that.” I told him I knew, but it was bothering me. And without missing a beat, he said, “Mom, why do you tell us not to do things but then sometimes you still do them?”

I just sat there… humbled.

Because he’s right, I tell them not to have dirty mouths, and then I let something slip when I spill coffee all over the counter. I tell them screens are bad for their brains, and then my phone is attached to my hand, approximately always. I tell them rest is good and that God made us to need it, and then I power walk right past the bench for three weeks straight.

Come on moms, please tell me I am not alone in this?!

Here’s the thing, though, I don’t want to model perfection for my boys. I gave up on that a long time ago. What I want is for them to watch me seek after God’s heart. To see me fight for the bench even when life is loud. To know that rest isn’t weakness… it’s actually where we find everything we need to keep going.

And that starts with me showing them what it looks like.

So here’s what fighting for the bench actually looks like in our house right now.

It looks like Jesus Calling in the morning before the chaos starts. Bible study spread out on the kitchen table throughout the week. My personal favorite and the best way I have learned to model the bench lately: winding down at night with my boys, reading through their devotionals together before bed, and letting “Shalom” from the David movie play softly while they fall asleep.

Without even trying to make it a lesson, I am showing my boys what it looks like to bring your tired self to Jesus at the end of a long day. I am modeling the bench. Not perfectly, but intentionally.

And maybe that’s the whole point. Not a perfect quiet time routine. Not a color-coded Bible study system. Just a mom who keeps circling back to Jesus, on the car ride, at the kitchen table, at the foot of their beds, and boys who grow up watching her do it.

That’s the kind of rest I want to pass down.

Jesus,

Thank You for the bench.

For the invitation to stop, sit down, and let You refill what this season has taken from us.

Forgive us for believing we have to earn the rest You are already freely offering.

Remind us that You are already waiting and that we don’t have to show up perfectly to sit beside You.

And when we get up, walk with us. Let that peace stay with us through every busy season.

Amen

Until next week, Blair

Share Messy Mercies