Tag Archives: driven 4th commandment

SLEEP, day one

1 Christ is All, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , ,

rush

Rested or restless?

I was once a TYPE-A personality, I have been told.  I just thought that I was a really great multi-tasker who was highly productive.

Professionally, I was rewarded for being a retail manager who could get more done in less time, using less people, making more money.  I needed very little sleep (so I was convinced) and never took work breaks. I was proud of working 16-hours days 7-days-a-week and was able to “persuade” those who worked with me/for me to do the same. Not only did I break the 4th commandment regularly, I did it with pride – sure that my world wouldn’t keep spinning if ever I wasn’t controlling it.

the 4th commandment

I did not know a crash was coming.  I did not know I was living deeply in sin.  I knew the Bible taught on rest, and that Jesus had promised rest for the weary, but I had decided that rest was just a state of mind, that if you could get your mind into a state of calm and rest, that was all you could hope for in these crazy days we live in. I didn’t know about the depth of the physical need for sleep.  I didn’t know  that God doesn’t think you’re lazy if you sleep and that the scriptures actually have so much to say about it.

For the next several days, I’m going to share my story of how I found out the Creator, the God of the Universe, was commanding me to rest, and SLEEP. It turns out these are gifts and so wonderful!

zzzzzzzz

But first – we must determine: are YOU a TYPE-A personality, or living like one?  Take the test below

  • You are commonly characterized as “driven”
  • You have a strong sense of time urgency
  • you experience free-floating hostility
  • you control others
  • you are agressive
  • you thrive on competitiveness, a need to win
  • you have a tendency toward self-destruction, self-loathing
  • you’re a hardworking, multi-tasker
  • you out-produce others around you with similiar jobs (even as parent, etc)
  • you experience chest pain or cardio vascular episodes
  • your friends and family joke that you are a workaholic
  • you just think you’re highly productive and committed
  • you score high in every category on spiritual gifts tests
  • you are commonly heard asking, “Do I have to do it myself?” because no one else (absolutely no one else) can do it as well as you
  • having a day off stresses you out
  • you ache everywhere, but won’t let on
  • it is all just a house of cards and could crash at any time, but you are making sure that doesn’t happen

If you can answer yes to 4 or 5 of these, you are slowly, but surely  and oh-so-needlessly wearing yourself  totally out.  If you answered yes to 6 or more you are a raging, driven, TYPE-A, work and pain-addicted, adrenalin-junkie, prideful, commandment-breaker.

Hey. I’m not judging you. It takes one to know one. I SEE you!

“TYPE-As…do have a problem with work addiction.  They do not notice the lack of balance in their lives, for they are too pre-occupied with leading our national charge toward production, expanse, and success.

TYPE-As…refuse to rest; to them it is an enemy.  Also, those around them are made to feel weak if they desire a pause.  Consequently, life is full-speed ahead.  they work hard, they play hard and they even Sabbath hard.” from Margins

I am getting ready to tell you why it is not only OK to rest and sleep for rest, but God commands it.  Who wants to argue with God?  Not me…anymore.

Blessings…be at rest, Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God…”  Hebrews 4.9

Read all the posts from this series: