Popular women’s author and speaker Shaunti Feldhahn is blowing the myth of rest wide open, starting with the touchstone verse of Matthew 11:29: “Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me. For I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Popular women’s author and speaker Shaunti Feldhahn is blowing the myth of rest wide open, starting with the touchstone verse of Matthew 11:29: “Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me. For I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
“I realize there’s something really crucial here,” Feldhahn says. “It won’t always be rest for your body. But even when you’re busy, you cannot be stressed by it. You can feel rested; you don’t have to be frazzled and worried and have that feeling of craziness, because look at the imagery that He gives us.”
Despite what Christians may think, this verse is not about stopping work and going to the barn for a nap.”
What He says is, ‘No, while you’re plowing the field in the heat of the day, you can find rest for your soul,'” Feldhahn says. “And to me, that was profound to realize I can be busy and find rest.”
Feldhahn says one practical way to avoid stress and live a peaceful life is to build only on rock, which means basing decisions on the Word of God rather than emotions.
“It’s so easy to make decisions based on our feelings, for example, and our feelings are going to change,” she says. “Our feelings can betray us. Scripture [warns repeatedly] that you can’t follow your feelings. Instead, make those decisions based on what you know is true and unchanging, no matter how you feel that day.”
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