Episode 185 - Rest, My Beloved
- Tricia Zody
- Mar 5
- 7 min read
2/5/25
Hello friends! And welcome to Another Beautiful Life, Episode 185 – Rest, My Beloved.
As most of you know, I wrote my first book, and it was released last December. The title is one you’ll be familiar with: Another Beautiful Life, with the subtitle being, “A Christian’s Journey to Finding Peace and Hope in Brokenness.” It’s been such a blessing and truly humbling to hear from a lot of you who read the book how much it’s meant to you. I couldn’t be anymore thrilled and thankful that God allowed me to write it.
Though I’ve heard that different parts of the book have touched different people, the one chapter that most people mention is chapter 2: Rest, My Beloved. And I’m not surprised why. We are busy, busy people, conditioned by a culture that drives us and expects us to do more, prove more, be more. And most of us know that we can’t. We just can’t. We’re worn out already. We need something different before we absolutely lose our minds.
There are four sections in that chapter solely dedicated to the idea of rest. Rest from busyness and hustle. Rest from people-pleasing. Rest from striving. Striving to be someone, to get somewhere, look a certain way, obtain something, prove something, and to validate the breath we breathe and the space we take up each day. So much striving. And I know this is not just me. I hear it in a plethora of different ways in all kinds of circles. But even in Christian circles, this is an unintentional disclosure that we are living in a false identity. It’s cloaked and hidden in the things we do…even the good things. Those things we do begin to identify us.
Something the Lord laid on my heart after my life completely changed and I was trying to figure things out was, “You will know that something is an idol in your life by the way you react when it is threatened or taken away.” I may have shared that with you before. But with that in mind, it’s here we can ask ourselves “Who am I without those labels? Who am I if I’m not productive or contributing in some way? Am I striving to find my place in this world?” And the answer to these questions will reveal if we’ve made our striving into an idol.
But fortunately, the chapter also points you to a better striving: a faith-rest. This is the kind of rest that you experience when you cease trying to prove your worth or even your position in God’s kingdom and simply accept the beautiful gift He has already given in providing the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. This is where we truly rest.
The last two sections of Chapter 2 have everything to do with finding the kind of rest our souls so long for by surrendering control and just going where God’s grace takes us. I’ve told you a time or two in this podcast about God’s call on my life: “No Swimming, Just Floating.”
But this last section, whew, this has been the challenge of my life. This last section is titled, Unhurry Your Life, and I want to read you the first part:“To live the faith-rest life, we must allow God to lead and guide us through life where He is in control of the pace and the direction - the flow of our life. It’s a call to unhurry our lives.
It challenges everything our Western culture celebrates about hustle and bustle. The premise is to live in a state of rest and peace, no matter your goals, dreams, or desires. There is always a tendency for hustle when what we really need is grace for ourselves to find a pace of rest while we continue to do the things that are necessary for life, as well as the things we love.
I will admit that in the past, I have been all about the “hustle,” getting things done and making things happen. I can easily overdo it, and my life gets out of balance. When this happens, it is like the train has jumped the track, going full steam ahead. Inevitably, there is a crash coming!
This affects my body, soul, and spirit. It affects my physical and mental health, my relationships, and even my strength of faith. Things start to fall apart. Fear and doubt creep into my heart and mind. I get fatigued and worn out easily. My joy is sapped, and my relationship with the Lord feels strained. This makes me feel even more out of control than ever, and anxiety grips so tightly that I feel like I am going to die. A hurried life has been my undoing.
Dallas Willard was an American philosopher, Baptist Pastor, Professor, and distinguished thought leader of Spiritual Formation. He is best known for his often-quoted piece of advice to any who inquires about how to have a healthy spiritual life. When Mr. Willard was asked how to attain this healthy spiritual life, he replied, “Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” (end quote)
Like I said, this section – to unhurry my life – has been the toughest challenge yet. To “eliminate hurry.” Wow, I feel like my whole life has been one big “hurry.” When I was young, I was in a hurry to get married. When I was married, I was in a hurry to have babies. When I had babies, I was in a hurry for them to grow out of diapers and into driving themselves to all those crazy extracurricular activities. Even today, I’m in a hurry. I walk fast. I talk fast. I move fast. My life’s pace is fast.
And I remember a time when having a full calendar meant you were needed, important, valuable. In one specific PTO meeting I remember, oh so many years ago, one of the committee chairs came in, plopped her calendar open on the conference table and you could hear a collective, albeit hushed, “Ahhhh.” It was said in reverence. It was said with envy. It was said as if one was bowing to the Alpha female in the room. Why? Because her calendar was full. Every single day there was something (or multiple somethings) penned on one square after another. Oh how invaluable she must be. People needed her. She was important. The rest of us hid our calendars under our forearms, embarrassed. We wanted to be like her: significant, desired, contributory, meaningful, preferred, worthwhile. And why was she these things? Because her calendar was full. And she was busy.
Our Western culture admires “busy.” Which is probably why it’s so difficult for me and many others to unhurry our lives today. It’s counter intuitive to our conditioning. But the Lord reminds us through the words of the Apostle Paul, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world…” Romans 12:2. In other words, don’t admire “busy,” nor use it to measure your personal value and worth. Don’t be like the world.
You’ve probably heard Dallas Willard’s quote somewhere before. John Ortberg, a personal friend of Mr. Willard’s, wrote about him in his book, Soul Keeping: Caring for The Most Important Part of You. And more recently, John Mark Comer, another personal friend of Mr. Williard’s, used his quote as his book title: The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. Both equally inspiring books. Both a challenge I’m working at every day. Dallas Willard said eliminating hurry from your life is what will create a healthy spiritual life. But I’ll argue that it’s not just the spiritual part of us that benefits. It’s the whole of us – body, spirit, and soul (our mind, will, and emotions). When we begin to slow down, we’re able to give enough attention to questions like, “What do I really care about?” and “Who really matters to me?” When we answer these questions, we can look at our life to see if we’re actually slowing down and making open space and unhurried time for the things and the people that really matter to us. And we’ll notice if we’re making open space to be with God; to be unhurried and linger in God’s presence; to just be with Him. Relaxed.
Friend, this is where the real rest is found. And we’ll find it permeates every other part of our life. I want to challenge you to take an analysis of your life. Are you too busy? Where can you slow down and make space to unhurry your life. In the course of preparing for this episode, I’ve set it aside several times to rock my sweet 3-month-old grandbaby. That’s what really matters to me, and so I’m making space. I’m also repeating to myself in my head constantly, “I’m not in a hurry.” So, I challenge you to join me; to do what you can, what’s within your control, to yield to God’s call to “Rest, My Beloved.”
If you want to go deeper into this topic, don’t forget to grab my Listener’s Guide with a few prompt questions that will help you take that initial step of analyzing your life when it comes to rest. The link is in the show notes.
Have a wonderful week, friends. See you next Wednesday for the next episode of Another Beautiful Life.
SHOW NOTES:
God is calling us into a place of continual, satisfying, unhurried rest in Him. To slow down. To make quiet and purposeful space. But this is counter cultural and flies in the face of everything we believe makes us valuable and worthwhile. The result is busy, frantic, unsettled lives, striving for something more. That “more” is found when we heed God’s call to “Rest, My Beloved.”
Resources Mentioned:
· Another Beautiful Life: A Christian’s Journey to Finding Peace and Healing in Brokenness by Tricia Zody https://a.co/d/hoPKsBO on Amazon
· Soul Keeping by John Ortberg
· The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer
· For more tools, questions for reflection, and resources to help you on your journey, download the Listener's Guide for this episode: https://www.triciazody.com/guide
Scriptures Mentioned:
· Romans 12:2
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