Counterfeit Rest

Editor’s note: Set Your Eyes Higher by Whitney Lowe feels like the perfect devotional for right now in these high-stress times. Sometimes, we just need the reminder to look to Jesus, set everything else aside, and deeply breathe in His peace, right? Enjoy this excerpt.

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After a long day juggling little kids, corporate work, household chores, and my own basic human needs (wildly luxurious of me to insist upon showering!), nothing sounds better than a night of mindless reality television. The Bachelor franchise has me in a chokehold. Give me the remote and let me critique the edited-beyond-recognition version of what a twenty-two-year-old from San Diego has to say about finding love. Let me get lost in “the most dramatic season in Bachelor history” (which is somehow all of them). That show shuts off my brain unlike anything else. I’m not proud of it, but there comes a time when we all must own our truth.

But here’s the thing: bingeing reality TV doesn’t actually impart lasting peace and renewal. It actually detracts from the sleep I need to function.

My go-to strategy for winding down, then, is not genuine rest.

Rest brings restoration, but my late-night TV-bingeing is just a quick hit of dopamine that allows me to escape and numb out for a while. My goal in these moments is to shut down as quickly as possible and disengage with the real world.

What’s your preferred form of counterfeit “rest”? Is it online shopping? Gossiping with your best friend? Getting lost in a novel? It could even be a relationship. Maybe it’s something you wish I wouldn’t bring up, like internet porn or drugs or the glass of wine that turns into four. Your escape doesn’t have to be inherently sinful, but it certainly might be. As far as I’m concerned, anything we use to numb ourselves is something we need to be aware of.

Just like a good night’s sleep, sometimes true rest requires us to put down the devices and the distractions.

Rest that restores may counterintuitively require us to step away from our go-to sources of temporary comfort. 

In Exodus, God quite literally commanded His people to rest one day each week (Exodus 20:8–11), and there is much to learn from what this divinely ordained rest entailed. 

On this Sabbath day, the Israelites were not to carry burdens of any kind (Jeremiah 17:21–22). They were to set down their physical and spiritual burdens as an act of surrender and dependence that flies in the face of modern hustle culture. They were also prohibited from buying and selling (Nehemiah 13:15–17), meaning they were to take a break from commerce.

• How much more do we, living in this materialism-driven society, need a break from the constant consumerism that draws us in?

In the wilderness, the Israelites were instructed to prepare their manna for the Sabbath a day in advance (Exodus 16:21–30). This was a sign of their reliance on God alone for provision and a surrender of their striving. While we are no longer bound to the Old Testament Sabbath laws, we, too, will benefit from the true rest that comes from intentionally acknowledging that He alone sustains us. Sabbath was intended to take our eyes off the ways of this world and to set them onto God’s Kingdom. 

When we make space to reorient ourselves to the reality of God’s power and love, we will find our hearts truly revived. As Romans 12:1–2 says, 

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God — this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — His good, pleasing and perfect will. — NIV

When we’re in need of rest, the last thing we want to do is immerse ourselves more deeply into the patterns of this world. Reality TV, drinking, and shopping — really anything that offers the counterfeit rest of escapism — do not retune our hearts to the reality of God’s Kingdom, nor do they offer the peace and renewal that we find in it.

Your heart needs that kind of true renewal. What “patterns of this world” have you been going to for counterfeit rest? Maybe today is the day to stop settling for “rest” that doesn’t truly restore.

READING: ROMANS 12:1–2 

FOR ADDITIONAL STUDY: PHILIPPIANS 3:18–21, EXODUS 16

Lord,

I desire true, restorative rest for my burned-out heart and my exhausted body. Show me what counterfeits I have been leaning on to escape and numb out. Help me create space to reorient to Your provision and Your Kingdom. In Your mercy, God, renew my mind.

Amen. 

Excerpted with permission from Set Your Eyes Higher by Whitney Lowe, copyright Whitney Lowe.

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Your Turn

You know what your go-to escapes are. They’re “harmless” until they interrupt our interaction with Jesus. They’re harmless until they steal our true rest. What easy distraction do you need to step away from in order to find the rest and peace of Jesus? Step into that this week and see what God does! ~ Devotionals Daily