Finding Rest

“This shift has been brutal, go home and get some rest.” We’ve all heard it. But what happens when rest doesn’t come? When you drag your exhausted body through the door only to face crying kids, unpaid bills, and a yard that needs to be mowed?

When your tank is empty, but life still demands more? In our early years, rest might have been easy. A dark room. A quiet house. A long stretch of uninterrupted sleep. But as life fills with people who depend on us, rest becomes something we chase, but rarely catch. We gulp down caffeine, push through the fog, and tell ourselves, “I’m fine.” Until one day, we finally admit the truth: “I’m not fine.”

Our minds, our bodies, our hearts, they all need rest. And in this profession, the stakes are high. People rely on us to think clearly, move quickly, and stay strong. But how do you stay strong when you’re running on fumes? And yet, even deeper than physical exhaustion is a spiritual exhaustion many of us carry silently.

Because physical rest alone doesn’t heal a restless soul. Scripture speaks of a different kind of rest, true rest, offered by God through Jesus Christ. A rest

that doesn’t depend on a quiet house or a lighter schedule. A rest that isn’t shattered by guilt, fear, or the pressure to be good enough.

For years, I thought my standing with God depended on my performance. Every mistake felt like a step away from His love. Every sin felt like proof that I had failed Him. I walked on eggshells with God, convinced I had to keep working to stay saved. No wonder I felt no rest. But that isn’t the gospel.

Jesus says, “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

This is the rest of a soul that stops striving.

A soul that stops pretending.

A soul that stops carrying burdens it was never meant to carry.

“True rest is not something you earn, it's someone you trust. And His name is Jesus.”

As first responders, rest is something we struggle to find. But God offers you rest that goes deeper than exhaustion, rest that holds you, restores you, and reminds you that you don’t have to save yourself.

“True rest”, how can we find it?

• We must understand we can’t work hard enough to earn spiritual rest.

  • “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but

according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of

the Holy Spirit.” (Titus 3:5)

• Rest is only found by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.

  • “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

• You can have true rest now; true rest that is from God, found only in Jesus.

  • “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from His.” (Hebrews 4:9-10)

• We can have hope that the rest found by faith in Jesus will never be taken from us.

  • “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things

present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything

else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)