Two kinds of rest—physical and spiritual — are critical for human flourishing and survival. We often conflate the two, but they are very different.

When I was 19 years old, I learned, in a terrifying way, that physical rest is not optional. During college, I worked in a hotel. I was tired after wrapping up a late shift followed by an early morning one, with only a few hours of sleep in between. However, I was excited to join my family on vacation three hours away, so I hit the road without napping. After only one hour of driving, my drowsiness increased. Deciding it was nothing that caffeine and loud songs on the radio couldn’t fix, I pressed on.

However, after another hour, I was really struggling to stay awake. I was in a rural area with no payphones (before cell phones), so I could not call for help. It was too hot to sleep in the car, so I tried harder to power through. Eventually, despite all my efforts, the interstate started to blur, and I knew I could not stay awake much longer. I was relieved to see a sign for a rest area two miles ahead.

Unfortunately, that sign was the last thing I remember before falling asleep. My next memory was waking up while driving 60+ mph toward trees in the interstate’s center median.

We all reach a point where it is physically impossible to stay awake, even in the face of danger.

When we are sleep-deprived, all sorts of bad things can happen. Memory, concentration, and judgment are impaired, coordination abilities and reaction times slip, and our thresholds for irritability and frustration decrease. We might even fall asleep at the wheel.

But even though dozing while driving taught me a dramatic lesson about human limitations and the unavoidable need for sleep, it took me a long time to learn that rest is also essential beyond the physical realm. Our souls need rest as much as our bodies. And the consequences of not partaking in spiritual rest can be even more devastating than those caused by sleep deprivation.

Soul weariness opens the door to stress, anxiety, cynicism, exhaustion, bitterness, conflict, anger, hopelessness, and ultimately, despair. I have experienced all these on the long, slow road to spiritual maturity, and I still do when I do not partake of soul rest.

The internet is full of information defining sleep, outlining its stages, and informing us how to fall asleep, stay asleep, and rest well. Research and our experiences show us the good things happen when we close our eyes to the world and fall asleep. Our brains move from an outward focus to an unconscious, inner focus. Our thoughts and memories converge into dreams. Our cardiovascular and immune systems are bolstered. Damaged muscles are repaired and replenished. We even benefit from short bursts of sleep (aka, “naps”) during the day.

But spiritual rest is more than just stopping activity, and we are often given confusing messages about what it is and how to receive it.

While physical sleep is a rhythm built into our biology by God at Creation, soul rest begins when we commit our lives to Christ. Then, for the remainder of our time on Earth, resting our souls means shutting down the persistent tendency to grab the steering wheel back from Him. It requires setting our eyes, hearts, and minds on Christ and deciding again and again (whenever we forget) to trust Him (over ourselves or others) to rule and sustain the universe (even our little corner of it). 

During soul rest, we consciously turn away from our inner thoughts and worries, along with problems in the world, and remember God. We stop expecting anything to give us identity and purpose outside of Jesus. Instead, we meditate on who He is, celebrate that He is restoring all things, and enjoy the fact that all things hold together in and through Christ, not us. We stop trying to find peace through our futile efforts to know, manage, and solve everything.

As with physical rest, there are tangible benefits to resting our souls in Christ.

When we rest in Christ, our burdens become lighter. God restores our broken, worn-out spirits. Gratitude flows. Our stress levels decline. Space opens for the fruit of the Holy Spirit to fill us with gentleness, patience, kindness, self-control, love, and more, equipping us for whatever lies ahead in the remains of the day. When our souls rest, we experience peace and contentment overflowing into our actions. For example, we become better able to deal lovingly and patiently with the flawed people we encounter (ourselves included).

We tend to fight drifting to sleep, partly because physical rest requires vulnerability as we move into a state of helplessness. In the same way, we can battle against spiritual rest because it means admitting weakness and being vulnerable and needy before God. Entering spiritual rest requires humility.

But every time we humble ourselves and set our eyes back on Christ, we receive the crucial benefits of soul rest. Although it is easier to do in a quiet space (again, this is why physical and spiritual rest are often confused), we can also return to God in chaotic or busy times. However, just as naps do not satisfy the body’s need for uninterrupted sleep, so brief times of re-centering our focus on God do not completely fill our need for spiritual refreshment. We need longer stretches of uninterrupted time with God.

Thankfully, like with sleep, we can adopt practices that make a state of spiritual rest easier to enter, like stopping work to read the Bible, pray, and reflect on God’s goodness. Setting aside one day per week to enjoy these pursuits and rest is even one of the Ten Commandments. Two of my favorite ways to enter spiritual rest are to read books by other Christians and enjoy nature. No matter how we rest in God, we will feel the ripple effects in our bodies, minds, and relationships.

Amazingly, nothing terrible happened to me or others when I fell asleep at the wheel many years ago. Somehow, my story had a good ending, even though I reflexively jerked the car back on the road, spun out, and narrowly missed an 18-wheeler. But the only way to have full assurance that our lives will have a good ending is to remember who is at the wheel. Then, rather than driving off the road, wrecking ourselves and others, we can rest in Him each day.

We were made to rest in Christ alone, and He makes it easy.

Why fight it?

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Cover photo by Jessica Kantak Bailey on Unsplash.