My son doesn’t love naps. Unless he’s absolutely exhausted he tends to fight them, even though they’re really good for him.
The main reason is that he feels like he’s missing something when he’s taking one. But really the only thing that he’s missing is rest and recovery. It hasn’t clicked yet that when he gets a nap it makes the rest of his day (and everyone else’s) generally more bearable.
All his young mind knows is that naps are boring — that they aren’t “fun”. They keep him from doing the things he’d rather be doing.
My son needs naps, he just doesn’t know it.
And the funny thing is that when you grow up, you gain a different perspective and experience life, you really start appreciating naps. You crave them. But you often don’t have the time to get one when you’d like to. When you get some age on you you look back at all the missed naps with some level of regret and longing. Longing for the days when you had the option to just sleep.
Funny how things change with some maturity.
But here’s the thing: we’re often not all that different from young children. So what do we have to learn from this nap-resistance phenomena?
Well, you see, God is our rest. And doing the things that connect us to Him bring us rest and restoration, but we often fight them because they’re not our flavor of fun or we feel like we’re missing on things (just like kids do with naps); but, by neglecting connecting practices, all we’re really missing is rest, recovery, restoration, and joy.
What good things have you been fighting against or avoiding?
Do you realize that those “boring” or “distracting” things that you’d rather not do are some of the things that you need the most?
Ask the Father to show you what you need that you’ve made a habit of avoiding. Listen to His answer. Then be obedient to those things and enjoy the connection they bring; and enjoy the rest and restoration that comes from that long-neglected connection.
Don’t wait until you’ve missed years worth of connection to yearn for opportunities to rest in fellowship with the Father.
Take that nap. You need it. We all do.