When my wife and I first got married, I was working three jobs.

During the day, I did campus ministry, in the evening I built websites for freelance clients, and at night I cleaned office buildings.

It was exhausting and rest was hard to come by.

In those days of hustling just to scrape by, I viewed rest as a necessary evil.

“If I just didn’t have to sleep,” I thought, “then I could work a few extra hours each day and be able to catch up on the bills!”

It eventually caught up with me.

I distinctly remember flopping down in a chair in the lobby of an empty bank I was cleaning one night. I just put my face in my hands and cried. I wasn’t sad, I was just so tired, and there was no hope of it letting up anytime soon.

The Lord used that experience to lead me to the biblical truth that not only do we need rest, but it’s actually a gift from God.

Rest is a gift because it reminds us of our limits, and our limitless God. The psalmist brings us face to face with this in Psalm 127:1

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

No matter how hard we push ourselves, we all have a limit. But God does not.

Often we push ourselves to not rest because of external pressures—a deadline, financial fears, or people pleasing—but even as these pressures are real, we must remember that ultimately it will the Lord who provides for us. And perpetually running yourself ragged may be more of an expression of unbelief than it is of bravery.

He goes on in verse 2 to say,

It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.

If you’re feeling exhausted or guilty about resting today, remember that the type of productivity which pleases God isn’t the hustle-til-you-drop kind, it’s the type that admits, “He is God, I am not.”

Work hard. Rest hard. Trust God.

Learn to view rest not as a necessary evil, but as a blessed gift from a loving Father.