REST
The bow
cannot be always bent without fear of breaking. Repose is as needful to the
mind as sleep to the body… Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather
fresh strength.
C.H. Spurgeon
Lectures to My Students.
Rest time is not waste
time. It is economy to gather fresh strength… It is wisdom to take occasional
furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less.
C.H. Spurgeon
The
Minister’s Fainting Fits, Lectures to My Students, Lecture XI, 1856.
Here
is the Son of God, who in less than three years achieved far more than kings
and generals had ever achieved in a thousand years, taking time out. Why? Well,
He knew His needs and limitations – even He couldn’t work twenty-four hours a
day seven days a week – and neither can we. But also He could have the
confidence to do this because of His quiet, serene knowledge that His time was
in His Father’s hands, that He wasn’t going to change
the world by one endless round of activity, but by doing things in God’s time
in God’s way.
Melvin Tinker
Wisdom to Live By, Christian Focus
Publications, 1998, p. 132-133. Used by Permission.
Someone may
ask, “But why should I rise early?” To remain too long in bed is a waste of
time. Wasting time is unbecoming of a saint who is bought by the precious blood
of Jesus. His time and all he has is to be used for the Lord. If we sleep more
than is necessary for the refreshment of the body, it is wasting time the Lord
has entrusted us to be used for His glory, for our own benefit, and for the benefit
of the saints and unbelievers around us.
The Autobiography of George Muller, 1984, p. 118.
All quotations taken from books published by Whitaker House are used with
permission of the publisher. Whitaker House books are available at Christian
bookstores everywhere.
Measure
the time of your sleep appropriately so that you do not waste your precious
morning hours sluggishly in your bed. Let the time of your sleep be matched to
your health and labor, and not to slothful pleasure.
Richard Baxter
You
have created us for Yourself, and our heart cannot be
stilled until it finds rest in You.
Augustine
Sleep could
well be the daily reminder that some of us need to reclaim the reality of
death, the beauty and brevity of life.
Jill Carattini
A Theology of Sleep, RZIM, August 7, 2009. Used by Permission.
Perhaps sleep
[provides] a striking image of finite bodies that will cease to be, can
simultaneously provide us a rousing image of bodies that will rise again.
Jill Carattini
A
Theology of Sleep, RZIM, August 7, 2009. Used by Permission.