If you’re like me you’ll try everything but God when life gets difficult: friends, work, church duties. On their own, they’re not bad things, yet compared to what we need they’re mere distractions. The Today devotional reminds us this morning that God is our only true refuge. Until we run to Him we’ll never find rest:

The psalmist names God as our refuge from powers that tear at our peace. We are invited to know him as our rock and fortress, a sheltering presence when we feel overwhelmed by a world full of arrogance and intrigue. Its a mistake to think shelter happens just by getting cozy with other Christians—although Christian friends certainly are important. Only the Holy One provides security for the frightened soul. We soon discover that the world snared in our own hearts is what terrorizes us most. We need our Maker as our Refuge—and nothing less.

Read the rest of the devotional at thisistoday.com.

Have you been avoiding God in the midst of your troubles?

Busy-ness is a part of our lives, and it’s not very practical or helpful to insist that we simply stop being busy. But it is nevertheless critically important that we not let the hectic pace of our lives pull us away from God. That’s the topic of this devotional from Words of Hope:

Many of us are terribly busy. Our hectic pace of life spins like a merry-go-round, threatening to throw us off completely. So we go to the opposite extreme. We “veg” out, passively watching program after program on TV. Yet somehow this inactivity fails to give us the rest we seek.

Rest is not simply inactivity. It’s also a state of being. Both work and sleep are blessings, but they cannot cure the restlessness of our hearts. Augustine put it well when he said: “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” King David celebrated this deep sense of rest in Psalm 16. The refuge he found in God centered his whole being.

Read the rest of the devotional at Words of Hope.

There are two messages in this devotional that I very much needed to hear today. One is that laziness isn’t just a matter of sitting around doing nothing; in our world of constant distraction, you can keep terrifically “busy” but still manage to neglect the things you ought to be doing.

Secondly, there’s more to spiritual and emotional “R&R” than simply sleeping in on the odd Saturday morning. (My sleeping-in, video-game playing college self could have benefited from this message a decade ago.) Just as you can be lazy while keeping “busy,” you can also sit around doing nothing—our culture’s idea of “rest”—and not find spiritual refreshment.

The solution, of course, is to turn to God himself, who promises “rest for your souls” if we but turn to him. How busy are you today? Where do you find your rest—and is it the pure, renewing rest that God provides?

What do you think, should Christians take vacations?

Share your thoughts!

Rest is clearly an important activity, but I’d argue that in the Western world we don’t do a great job of emphasizing how important it really is.

What about you? Do you take a regular sabbath?

Share your thoughts!