The term Christian means to be Christ like. That simply means we are suppose to pattern our lives after Christ’s and live as He did. Well if you look of the portions of life that we see described in the Bible you see a pattern of Christ working at His current goals, then rest/relaxing and then expanding and conquering. Last week I talked about work and how it is vital for us to work at something that we are being called too by Christ, and to work at a career that fulfills more then our human needs and wants. A career must give us some balance and some validity for our days.

This week I am going to talk about proper rest and recovery. Think of life like a military war, soldiers are trained, then they function in the battle as they are trained, then they are pulled from the front for a bit to recover, grow and learn new techniques of battle. This how it is in spiritual battle as well. We accept Christ, we are trained and matured for life, then we do battle in the world, then we return after completing our battles and we learn more about warfare and expand our knowledge of both Christ and the enemy that we fight. This is how Christ lived as well.

A key function is the rest and recovery. This does not mean that we go off and do anything we please, or that we just waste time. It means that we enjoy our life, enjoy our family and friends, and we get our mind and life free of the things that are encumbering our progress for a while. Sometimes these breaks are short maybe a few days, maybe a week, but sometimes it takes longer to rest and recover, maybe even years.

This does not mean that we do not function in the body of Christ at these times, it just means that we are not as active in all the ministries that we usual to serve in. Usually it means a time of personal inventory and analysis to determine where next Christ is calling. Maybe He is honing one area of our ministries and retarding our ministries in other areas. We can not function in every role in every ministry. We must serve where we are being called, where God is blessing and where God is leading. Remember that we can still function, still serve, and still mature in these times. In fact most of our maturation will probably occur during these times. Basically it just means we are not pushing to expand our scope and breadth of ministry for a bit of time. We are looking to our past to learn from mistakes and bad habits, and honing our lives to a better tool for the use of Christ. These are the times that Christ is likely giving us visions about our future, ideas about new goals, and new paths. This is also a time to build support structures we are going to need when we launch new ministries or launch into new areas of expansion in our current ministries.

It is vital to remember that you can not grow effectively or efficiently when you are under fire and under attack. The time to grow and prepare is before the attack, before the new skills and techniques are needed, before the enemy besets your battlements. Failing to plan is planning to fail. We all should expect hurdles, expect problems, and expect frustration. Attacks by the enemy should be planned for and expected, they should not be surprising to us. That is what enemies due, they attack, destroy and foil the plans we make. So have a few different plans on how to reach the goal.

Both military and spiritual history is full of times when good to great generals or leaders became over confidant and overly sure of themselves, while under estimating their enemies and their enemies means. These results in failure. They believed their success was predestined so there was no need to have second and third plans and no reason to believe that they would succeed effortlessly based on their past successes. This the mark of a fool and a lifetime of successes can be completed defeated by one or two major foolish mistakes.

God’s call to rest and recover is a call to repent, restore, replenish and rejuvenate both our physical and our spiritual bodies. It is not a call to become sluggish, dull, ineffective and weak. We serve a risen savior that conquered death, hell and the grave. Satan, our enemy, is defeated ultimately but he is alive and well and attacking today. God wants us to be well equipped, well feed, well in heart and soul, and most of all well prepared to take His work to the world. The highlights of our Christian walk should always be what are coming next, not what we accomplished years ago, or as a child, or in our teens, or as a young parent.

God is calling you to a life for battle, rest and growth, yet we all seem to favor one of the three. Some have a passion for battle, they never rest, never reflect, and they become ineffective and dull, while never maturing or growing. Unfortunately, most western Christians only want to rest and never grow and never mature and assuredly never do battle, we develop the idea that once we are saved from hell that all is well with the world and there is no reason to progress. Then there are also the people that spend their life preparing and growing, but never use take a break to reflect and digest and also never step out and do battle. The true definition of balance is a person that knows how to work/fight, rest/recover, and grow/expand.

God wants you to recover. It is not a sin to stop for a bit and evaluate your situation, the state of your life, the state of your ministry, and the direction and goals that God is leading you too next. The sin becomes when you do not learn from your past and continue to make the same mistakes because you are unwilling to stop and learn. Sin also comes from the mind set that we are too important to take a break and that if we stop for a bit that God will not be able to continue His work, that is sin of pride and pride always comes before the fall. Another sin that can come from improper rest is the sin of becoming lazy and not wanting to return to battle or return to a path of expansion and growth. We become satisfied with our current state, happy in our mediocrity, and satisfied in our past successes. This is not the life that Christ called us too when He told us to take up our cross and follow Him DAILY!!

Like most things in life and in Christ the key to rest and recovery is to do it correctly and in moderation. Lack of or excuse rest both lead to failures and stresses within our lives, ministries, and personal walk with Christ that are not God’s plan. God wants to bless you, but sometimes you have to stop for a bit to find out where He wants you to go to receive the blessing. Do not let pride, laziness, and neglect lead to missed opportunities to encounter Christ and His will and His work. Enjoy the times of rest and recovery that God blesses you with, because normally soon after there will be a challenge that will need your full and complete attention and that is not the time to come up needy in the area of rest.

Next week - proper growth.