Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, He said to them, “Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” (Mark 6:31)
 
“I’m so busy,” I told a friend. I proceeded to run through a litany of the things I was doing. It was a complaint and an excuse for not doing other things like exercising or reading. It was also a boast. It’s easy to get caught up in the competition for who is the busiest. Perhaps you've taken part in one recently. Over-busyness is a significant problem today. In complaining about our busyness, we add to a chorus of voices that normalize and idolize busyness. (If you grew up with the VeggieTales videos, you might be thinking about the song “Busy, Busy” from the video “Are You My Neighbor.” It connects our sense of importance with how busy we are.)
Certainly, seasons of prolonged busyness stem from situations outside our control. Perhaps in addition to your work responsibilities, you suddenly find yourself being a full-time caregiver for an aging parent with medical issues. You entered a long season of exhausting labor. The reality, however, is that most times we find ourselves overly busy as a result of our own choices to work more, take on more responsibility, and eschew rest.
God points us in a different direction. While God gives us work as a good thing, God also calls us to rest. He calls us to daily periods of rest including sleep, mealtimes, and times of quiet reflection. He also calls us to a weekly day to rest: a built-in Sabbath that we are commanded to honor and keep holy. Interestingly, those scriptural reminders that work is a good thing and the command to rest often come together. Genesis 2:2 describes God’s creative activity as “work.” We are created by God to do meaningful work. The passage then tells us that God Himself rested on the seventh day. If God Himself rests, we can be assured that rest, like work, is good and holy. Taking a break from our labors is not something to be ashamed of, but a way of following and trusting God. We should not be “keeping busy.” Genesis 1 shows in the progression of evening and morning of each yom (day) a regular daily rhythm of rest followed by work. Psalm 127:2 says, “In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat— for he grants sleep to those he loves.” The Psalmist reminds us that while work itself is not a bad thing, working too hard and too long is not good; we need rest, too.
For the Israelites, these rest periods included seasons of celebrations and festivals. God even commanded His people to give their land an entire rest year every seventh year: a Sabbath year when they were not to till or plant their fields. Constant work exhausts us and the world around us. It is consumptive. When we build in rhythms of rest and delight, we give those around us and the earth itself a break from our demands.
Jesus, the incarnate God, provides an example of choosing quiet times for Himself away from the busyness of His labor. He also called His disciples to do the same thing. Mark 6:31 tells of a time when Jesus and His disciples were very busy doing good, important work, and Jesus called His disciples to take a break from their labors even though that meant taking a break from serving the important needs of others.
Even amidst unsustainable busyness, God calls us to and gives us some rest. As with the beautiful descriptions of God as the good Shepherd in Psalm 23, He makes us lie down in green pastures, and leads us beside quiet waters, giving us desperately needed rest even in the middle of a longer season of work. In doing so, He restores our souls.
Where cultural values conflict with God’s plan, we need regular reminders of how God calls us to live. We need God’s transforming work in our lives so that we live by His rhythm and values, rather than conforming to the world’s model. Turning away from the idol of busyness is one of those areas. We all need to heed Jesus' call:
Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.

So I went up the valley by night, examining the wall. (Nehemiah 2:15)
 
Last week, we learned that before Nehemiah set out rebuilding, he carefully examined the walls and gates of Jerusalem. Likewise, as we seek to rebuild the “walls” of our lives, we should take the time to examine them. I encouraged you to do a deep analysis of the walls and assess the level of damage they may have suffered. One way to do that is the daily spiritual discipline of Examen. Below, you will find a short article from Fuller Seminary on this practice.   
What is the Prayer of Examen?
The Prayer of Examen is a spiritual practice rooted in the teachings of St. Ignatius of Loyola. It is a powerful method of prayerful reflection aimed at becoming more aware of God’s presence in our daily lives. This practice invites us into intentional, guided conversation with God about what God might be doing in and around us. It also helps cultivate a posture of gratitude in our lives.
Below is one way to engage in the Prayer of Examen. While this prayer is typically practiced at the end of the day, it can be done anytime. All you need is a quiet, comfortable place and about 15-20 minutes to spend time with God in prayer.
If your mind wanders, don’t get discouraged or frustrated. Instead, tell God you’re distracted and refocus your attention. This practice, like a muscle, takes time to build and strengthen.
Prepare. Get comfortable. Close your eyes and take a few long, deep breaths. Ask the Lord to draw near and still your heart and mind.
Express thankfulness. Next, take a few minutes to tell God what you are thankful for. Consider using the following statements as a guide:
Thank You, Holy Spirit, for comforting me when …
Thank You, Father, for providing for my needs, such as …
Thank You, Jesus, for what happened earlier today/this week …
Examine the day with God. Review with God specific moments from your day or week. Tell God what you thought, felt, and did, and ask for the grace to understand what God might be doing in your life. Consider using the format below if you need more structure:
God, which of my thoughts from the day do You want to draw my attention to?
What feelings from the day do You want me to think about more deeply?
What did I do the day that You want me to focus on?
Reflect with God. As you reflect on what God showed you, tell the Lord when in these moments you felt nearest to God (moments of consolation) and when you felt furthest from God (moments of desolation).
Look Ahead with Hope. Tell God how you wish to collaborate with God tomorrow. What are you excited about? What are you nervous about? It can be helpful to choose one area you want to invite God more deeply into. Use the statements below as inspiration or guidance:
God, I want to invite You more deeply into my thoughts about …
Spirit, I want to invite You into my feelings of …
Jesus, I want to invite You into my actions, such as …
Conclude with Prayer. End with the Lord’s prayer:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.
 

Nehemiah 1:2-4
 
Life could be so much easier if we didn’t care for people. Consider, the experience of a boss who must lay off several employees because company income is down. A boss who doesn’t care for those being fired will clean house with minimal anxiety. But a boss who feels compassion for those being let go will be weighed down with sadness.
Life may be easier if we don’t care for people, but I expect you don’t aspire to that kind of “easy-way-out” person. As followers of Jesus Christ, we seek to live in a distinctively Christian way. If we want to imitate Jesus, then caring for people is not something we can ignore or reject. Loving people is one of the central aspects of the Christian life (Mark 12:28-31).
Sometimes caring for people is joyfully rewarding. When someone excels, we are delighted. Or when they experience personal blessings, like the birth of a new baby, we are thrilled. But there will also be less joyful times, even painful times.
We see an example of this in the opening verses of Nehemiah. While he was in Susa (today, Shush in Iran), he was visited by his brother, Hanani, and some others from Judah (more than 700 miles away from Susa). They delivered the unhappy news that the Jews in that area were “in great trouble and disgrace.” The wall of Jerusalem was still broken down, more than a century after it had been destroyed by the Babylonians (1:3).
How did Nehemiah respond to this news? At first, he did not make plans to fix the problems. Here’s how he describes his initial response, “When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.” (1:4) His grief had to do, in part, with the dire condition of Jerusalem. But surely Nehemiah was also sorrowful over the suffering of his fellow Jews. He was dealing with a relational challenge that comes when we care for people.
We need more than just pity for those who hurt, however. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once preached a sermon based on the parable of the Good Samaritan called “On Being a Good Neighbor.” In his sermon, he contrasted pity, an “impersonal concern” with genuine sympathy: “Pity may be little more than an impersonal concern which prompts the sending of a material check. But true sympathy is a personal concern that demands the giving of one’s soul. Pity may arise out of a concern for a big abstraction called humanity. Sympathy grows out of a concern for ‘a certain man,’ a particular human being lying needy at life’s roadside. Sympathy is feeling with the person in need—his pain, his agony, his burdens.”
Dr. King’s emphasis on sympathy is what we see in Nehemiah’s heart. He felt for the Jews in need, feeling their pain, agony, and burdens. This deep care for others led Nehemiah, first, to weep before the Lord. Then, it also led him to action.
Caring for people is a significant relational challenge. It’s an emotional challenge because it calls us to genuine sympathy, sympathy that can be joyful or painful and sometimes, a combination of both. Also, it is a strategic challenge because it raises the question of whether we should do anything to alleviate the suffering of others and, if so, what. We can only do so much “for the people entrusted to our care.” as Fuller Seminary professor Scott Cormode would say. Since we can’t do everything, we need to decide what our something might be. In the case of Nehemiah, his “something” was a rather big deal.
 
Gracious God, purify my passions, may your Spirit show me how I should act in faithfulness to you and out of love for others. Help me to know what I should do and what is not mine to do.

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws. They will be My people, and I will be their God. (Ezekiel 11:19-20)
 
Happy New Year! Beginning at midnight on the 31st, people around the world celebrated the new year.
We live close to Pasadena, CA, where New Year’s Day is a big deal. It starts with the Rose Parade, with its bands, equestrian units, and world-famous floats covered in flowers. Following the Parade, there is the Rose Bowl game, the so-called “granddaddy of them all” because it is the oldest college football Bowl Game. My son and I had the privilege of attending the game and had a great time.
Though I enjoy New Year celebrations, it seems that, apart from a calendar change, there isn’t much new about the new year. The economy is still the same on January 1 as on December 31. The tensions in the world are still the same. And, honestly, I am still the same, other than being a bit tired from staying up late on New Year’s Eve.
The newness that really matters comes not from the calendar but from God. Through Ezekiel, God once promised to make people new: “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 11:19). Now that’s newness we could celebrate: a new heart that is no longer divided between good and evil, a new spirit as the Holy Spirit refreshes our souls, a new heart that is tender and open, not stone cold.
What God once promised to do for Israel is given to us through Jesus Christ. Remember what it says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” When we know Christ through faith, though we continue to live in this age with all of its brokenness, injustice, and sin, we also begin to live in the new age, when God’s kingdom will have come fully, bringing healing, justice, and righteousness. Through the Holy Spirit, we begin to live as new people now, with new hearts and minds, and new ways of living.
Today, as you celebrate the new year, may you and I ask the Lord to renew our hearts. May we be fully open to all that God wants to do in us in 2025 and beyond.
 
Lord, renew my heart, purify my passions, reorient my desires,
and fill me afresh with love for You and my neighbors.