Athletes or anyone interested in physical wellbeing knows that your muscles, bones, heart and lungs, every part of your body only become their best with both vigorous exercise and periods of deep rest. It’s the same with other aspects of your being – your mental, emotional, and spiritual life as well. You need that rhythm of effort and recovery.

Paul invites believers to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). We work, and God works. It’s both. As Dallas Willard was known for saying, “Grace is not opposed to effort; it’s opposed to earning.”

You may already know which trap you tend to fall into more – striving to “fix” it, make things happen, grow up quick, or laying back and waiting for something to magically get better. God invites us to do both – work hard, and rest deeply.

So what is the “work” we are to do, the exercise necessary, so that our soul, our inner being, becomes strong, mature, complete, whole? And where does rest come in? What kind of rest do we need?

Training for Wellness and Integration

When we talk about effort many people imagine “trying harder” – to be kind, to not sin, to spend time in religious activities, to do any of the other things on the list of what a “good Christian” does. But that doesn’t work! Trying harder just wears you out. You wouldn’t be able to run a marathon by just trying harder.

Training, however, is different. It’s you putting on your virtual running shoes, getting outside, and doing it. – exercising the part of you that needs to become stronger, healthier, more whole.

Training can feel hard! It requires making a firm decision and taking action, saying No to whatever else you might do instead so you can say Yes to becoming the kind of person who can win. Instead of “trying harder” to have a better marriage, to not be afraid or angry, to resist the temptation to go to porn or alcohol or any other addiction, or any dimension of being like Jesus, here are some training steps you may need:

• Developing an escape plan to deal with your particular brand of temptation
• Learning some emotional language and skills to self-regulate
• Getting some help to address unresolved trauma that continues to impact you
• Setting boundaries or having hard conversations with a close friend or spouse
• Reading books or listening to podcasts that stretch your mind and soul
• Spending time around a few others who are growing also, because we must be in community to become whole

Notice that each of these steps often feels uncomfortable, awkward, and foreign. But so does learning to ride a bicycle – until you learn. And they are all process oriented – specific actions you take that through repetition change you to become more of who God created you to be.

Intentional Rest and Recovery

Our instant-gratification accomplishment-driven culture can lead us to be always “on,” doing more hoping to achieve more. That’s not the way of Jesus. Yes, there are hard things to be done. But just as important is the rest and recovery every part of your being needs.

One way to begin thinking of this is to “schedule the hard.” Weight training, for example, has better results if done every other day or a few days a week, rather than every day. Simply choosing to schedule your hard conversations, recovery or trauma work, or time with people may help those efforts to be right-sized and in their proper place.

And your rule of life needs to be just as specific about your rest and recovery as it is about the intentional training you put in. Sometimes that means a retreat or time away from everything. But that can also look like these daily “smaller” things:

• Turning off news, social media, or other digital input for a day a week and at a specific time each evening
• Getting outdoors regularly, letting nature nourish you
• As Dr. Curt Thompson says, putting yourself in the path of oncoming beauty – yes, in nature, but also in places such as art, music, literature, etc.
• Being in the presence of people who lift you up just by being around them
• Allowing yourself to just be in the presence of God

Your soul will find more clarity and strength than you realize when you include intentional rest and recovery in your daily, weekly, and yearly rhythms.

Growing in Maturity and Wholeness

It may be quickly obvious to you what’s missing in your rule of life. Remember, a rule of life is not a list of rules; it’s the structure on which you build your life so you can become who you – and God – want you to be.

If you’re exhausted with overwork, scared to slow down because you’ll miss something, you probably need to pay attention to the rest and recovery aspects that you need.

And if you’re stuck in the same rut of unhappiness, dysfunction, and misery, there’s probably as aspect of training that you need to engage in.

And if you’ve been simply drifting, letting life take you where it will, how’s that going for you? You may need to invest in both some deliberate training and some wise recovery practices.

Give your soul the rhythms of effort and recovery that it needs.

Your turn: What training practice or rhythm of recovery do you most need to put into place in your own journey of becoming?  Leave a comment below.

Want more? This week’s podcast is with the delightful Tish Harrison Warren about what to do when God feels far away and you feel weary.  Listen or watch.

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