Guest Contributor: Shaunti Feldhahn is a wife and mom, as well as a popular speaker and best-selling author.  After receiving a graduate degree from Harvard, Shaunti started out on Wall Street, but now applies her analytical experience in a totally different way. Today, Shaunti is a social researcher whose research has uncovered the little changes that have big impacts in our lives, marriages, families and workplace relationships. See more at her website: www.shaunti.com.

How long has it been since you have hit the “renew now” button?

It had been months of tight deadlines, late nights and too-little time with family, and I was working late yet again to finish a project before a much-needed long weekend away. So I groaned as an urgent reminder popped up on my computer: I was about to lose several of my website addresses, which would expire if I didn’t renew them immediately. I had invested so much in these websites, I should never have left it to the very last minute. Muttering that I didn’t have time for this, I hastily went on the relevant website, entered the necessary information, and hit the “Renew Now” button.

And that’s when I realized something. I always wait until the last minute to renew myself, too. I was living my life way too busy, too weary, not taking the Sabbath rests God asks of us. And yet, we aren’t designed to run for so long without them. God himself rested on the seventh day; and He built us to get that renewal not from a frantic one-time vacation, but from regular rest. A rest from so much striving in this world. A rest that is granted when we come to Him. A rest we can’t live without, and that He longs to give us… if we will only ask.

How long has it been since you have had that rest? How long since you have hit the “renew now” button? Make a commitment today to renew weekly, and take the Sabbath rest you are designed for.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 (NIV)