Being constantly exhausted is not good for your physical, mental, or spiritual health.  A woman wrote in recently and asked Chuck about his emphasis on working hard and being productive. She wanted to know if rest was as important as hard work and if being exhausted all the time might negatively affect our finances.

I took away a couple of great practical tips.  First, rest is Biblical.  God gave us the sabbath to take some time off and rest both mentally and physically.

Exodus 31:14 (New International Version)  Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people.

Okay, so thankfully we’re under the new covenant.  I don’t think anyone is going to be put to death for working on Sunday, but hey, there is a great point here we take for granted.  Thankfully, God did suggest for us a day to rest. 

During the show, Chuck mentioned how some companies rest on Sundays.  You may have heard of a company called Chik-Fil-A.    Think about the great opportunity to make money for their business on Sundays, yet they remain closed to rest and honor God.  Rather, they trust that God will provide for them in which he does as they are a top fast food chain.

The seond point (which I already hinted about) is that we need to rest mentally as well as physically.  Let me just honestly say that I don’t do a good job of either, but especially mentally.  How many of you think about work on Sundays?  I know I do.  The week starts getting mentally planned and then I end up thinking about issues and other things I need to deal with at work.  The next think you know I’m anxious. 

No, we need to rest mentally.  A good practical tip from the show is make a list of your concerns.  What are you worried about?  Make a check mark besides the items you can directly manage, or do something about yourself.  Then, determine what it is you need to do and when.  For everything else you can’t control, learn to lay those at God’s feet in faith. 

Let’s look at a personal finance example.  You can’t control what emergency expenditures might come your way.  The best you can do is pray in faith for God to protect you against such occurances and provide when they do occur.  Yet, you can definitely save money in an emergency fund to provide when emergencies do arise.

Alright, this weekend Sunday is my day of rest.  Time to relax, rest my brain and spend time with my loved ones.  What about you?  Do you need more rest?  Well…go get some!