{"id":3645,"date":"2015-05-01T15:09:53","date_gmt":"2015-05-01T15:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/?p=3645"},"modified":"2015-05-01T15:19:22","modified_gmt":"2015-05-01T15:19:22","slug":"rest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/2015\/05\/01\/rest\/","title":{"rendered":"Rest"},"content":{"rendered":"

God values rest. \u00a0We see that clearly in scriptures, but it is often hard to live out. \u00a0It is hard to live out because there are so many things calling out to us in life. \u00a0So many good things. \u00a0We are called to serve and serving requires sacrifice. \u00a0Once we get in the habit of sacrifice it is hard to separate ourselves from that sacrifice and take the time to rest. \u00a0Yet God knew that we would need rest, because times of rest help us refocus our attention on him and give us the strength for the sacrifices that lay in our future.<\/p>\n

During our time in the states we were very purposeful to take time and reflect over our first term. \u00a0We knew that it was important to see not only the amazing things that God had done, but also what things we needed to work on changing upon our return. \u00a0One of those areas that was clear to us was our lack of rest. \u00a0Part of the struggle was knowing how to get rest and then how to make sure it took place. \u00a0Our first two years here taught us the importance of ministry entering the home. \u00a0That means that we don’t just go out and do ministry, but we live ministry here in our home. \u00a0In order for our lives to reflect Christ, people need to be able to see our lives and part of seeing our lives means taking down the cultural walls that close up our lives from others. \u00a0We have seen the value and the impact this has had on our ministry, but this also means that our home is not a reliable place of rest. \u00a0My prayer as we returned that God would show us some affordable strategies as a family to find rest.<\/p>\n

God answered this prayer!<\/p>\n

As our first few months started picking up and the exhaustion of ministry began creeping in, we immediately starting looking at our calendar to see when we could get away. \u00a0 The boys had a 2 week break at the end of April and we decided to take a few days a get away. \u00a0Now the question was where. \u00a0We finally decided to try a mission home on the beach that we had been to for church retreats. \u00a0There was nothing fancy about it, but it was reasonable priced and we knew NO ONE around there. \u00a0We headed out this past week and it was exactly what we needed. \u00a0Joel looked at me and and asked me why we had never done this earlier. \u00a0God even sent a family with kids our kids age who were there at the same time. \u00a0The kids had a blast being in a place they could run around outside in play. \u00a0We had the beach right there to enjoy and Joel and I both were able to read a book. \u00a0It was exactly what we needed and we were reminded of the importance of MAKING time to do this every once in a while. \u00a0We are thankful that God gave us this time away as a family and that he is teaching us the importance of finding time for rest in the midst of all the chaos.<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>
One of those days we took the boys with their friends to a nearby ropes course.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I<\/a>
I didn’t even bring my camera, but thankfully our friend did<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The boys had such a good time<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"And<\/a>
And even that is enough to refresh a mama’s heart<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Life<\/a>
Life sometimes feels like a balancing act<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"But<\/a>
But these few days we just road the basket and relaxed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"He<\/a>
He even provided us friends to enjoy the time with<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"We<\/a>
We can’t begin to tell you how these few days blessed us<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Refocusing<\/a>
It was a quick breather that refocused our attention back on God before we jumped back into ministry.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

God values rest. \u00a0We see that clearly in scriptures, but it is often hard to live out. \u00a0It is hard to live out because there are so many things calling out to us in life. \u00a0So many good things. \u00a0We are called to serve and serving requires sacrifice. \u00a0Once we get in the habit of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":830,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2545],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-updates-and-news","7":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/830"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}