While part of resting well is choosing to fill our lives with fewer distractions, for many of us, our lives are still fairly full with responsibilities. Given that reality, Sun said that another aspect of wise rest is finding spare moments to seek the Lord. “When we have so much to do in a day, when we have so many other distractions, what we need to tether ourselves to is the presence of God,” said Sun.
Sun looks for “in-between moments,” such as when she is washing dishes, driving, or nursing her son, “to be still, to send up a breath prayer, a whisper prayer, to find those moments to actually be with the Lord.”
Watching a TV show or using social media are not inherently bad, but “not every moment needs to be given to scrolling. Not every moment needs to be given to binging a Netflix show,” said Sun. She uses spare moments in her day to pray, read the Bible, listen to a worship song, or even write down something she’s grateful for. This practice has helped Sun to have peace and “respite away from the crazy.”
Sun acknowledged that there are different seasons of life, and it will be easier to rest during some periods of our lives than it will be during others. “There are going to be seasons where you are running around like crazy; there’s God’s grace for you in that,” said Sun. “There’s a lot of different things in ministry that just come up. But I think when we anchor ourselves in this foundational truth, that helps us to approach the crazier seasons with a little more grace.”
Other insights Sun offered into the nature of rest included that our approach to it reveals where we are finding our identities, there is a communal aspect to resting well, and the reason why we say no to certain commitments should be because we have said yes to others. Her book also offers practical tips for resting well, such as reframing how we are defining productivity and being strategic about how we make our to-do lists.
At the end of the interview, Sun offered encouragement specifically to church leaders. “Something that church leaders can understand very, very deeply is that there is a weariness from pouring out,” she said. “There is a weariness from having a lot on your plate. And it’s really easy then, when we feel that way, to kind of shirk back, to feel a little apathetic, to just kind of go with the flow.”
It can be easy for church leaders to think, “I’m already so tired. How does God expect me to give more effort to my relationship with him when I’m already so tired of doing things?”
Calling to mind Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son, who returned to his father “in humility” and “covered in pig slop,” Sun said, “The Father receives you with open arms. And like we’re told in Scripture, he is the living water. He is the one that we abide in—John 15—that gives us fruit, that revives our soul.”
“And so just for the person listening that feels like they don’t have much left,” said Sun, “God doesn’t ask you to give what you don’t have. So just come to him with your weariness and know that his promises of being your living water to revive your soul are true.”
