We didn’t buy the camper because we had it all together.
We bought it because we wanted adventure. Because we wanted somewhere to go on
weekends, somewhere our kids could run around, somewhere that felt like an exhale
from the pace of regular life.
What we didn’t expect was that God would use a camping trip less than twenty minutes from home to give us something we didn’t realize we were desperate for.
Rest. Real rest. Together.
The trip we almost didn’t take
Life has been heavy lately. My husband Chris’s job has been really stressful, and when
our trip came around it would have been so easy to just cancel. To push through. To tell
ourselves we’d rest later — after things calmed down, after the pressure lifted, after,
after, after.
But Chris said — we’re still going. Just closer to home.
And y’all, God met us right there in the middle of a campsite twenty minutes from our house.
No notifications. No to-do lists. No pressure to perform or produce or show up for
anything other than our family and a fire.
We came home different. Not because our circumstances had changed — Chris’s job is
still stressful. The pressure is still there. But something in us had shifted.
We had rested. And in that rest, God had moved.
What the Bible says about rest (that we can so easily forget)
We live in a culture that treats rest like a reward. Like you have to earn it. Like you don’t
deserve to stop until everything is finished — and spoiler alert, everything is NEVER
finished.
But that’s not what God says.
In Matthew 11:28, Jesus says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I
will give you rest.” He doesn’t say come to me after you’ve handled it. He doesn’t say
come to me when things slow down. He says come now. As you are. Weary and
burdened and all.
Psalm 23:2 tells us that God “make me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside
quiet waters.” Sometimes God doesn’t ask permission to slow us down. Sometimes He
just leads us somewhere quiet and says — stay here for a minute.
And in Exodus 20:8 God didn’t suggest the Sabbath. He commanded it. Rest wasn’t
optional. It was built into the rhythm of how we were designed to live.
We were never meant to go and go and go without stopping. That’s not faith. That’s just exhaustion with a busy schedule.
Here's 5 faith-based ways to find rest in a heavy season:
You don’t need a camper. You don’t need a vacation or a perfect weekend or for your
circumstances to change first. Here’s what I’ve learned about finding real rest right
where you are.
-
Make space before God BEFORE you make a plan.
When things get heavy our first instinct is to strategize. To fix. To figure it out.
But Psalm 46:10 says “Be still and know that I am God.” Not be still and figure it
out. Not be still and make a list. Just — be still. Start your day with five minutes
of quiet before you open your phone. Let God have the first word. -
Protect one unplugged hour a week like it’s a meeting with God.
Because it is.
We are chronically available to everything except stillness. Pick one hour — one
— where you put the phone down, step away from the noise, and just exist with
your family or with God or both. It doesn’t have to be fancy. A walk. A fire. A
porch and a cup of coffee. God shows up in the quiet if we’ll just make room for it. -
Say no to something this week so you can say yes to rest.
Sometimes the reason we’re exhausted is because we’ve said yes to everything
except the things that actually fill us up. Proverbs 4:23 says “Above all else, guard
your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” You cannot pour from empty.
Saying no to one thing is not laziness — it’s stewardship of the life God gave you. -
Let your family be your sanctuary, not another obligation.
This one hits hard because sometimes we realize we treat our family time like another thing on our to-do list instead of the gift it actually is. Your people are not a to-do item. When you’re in a heavy season, lean into them. Put the screens away. Eat dinner together. Sit around a fire. Let togetherness be the thing that restores you. -
Trust that resting is not the same as quitting. This might be the most important one. When you’re in a hard season it can feel like stopping — even for a day — means you’re giving up. But Isaiah 40:31 says “Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.” Resting in God is not weakness. It is the very thing that makes you strong enough to keep going.
What I know now
The camper was our idea.
The rest God gave us through it? That was entirely His.
That’s the thing about God — He works through our ordinary choices to do extraordinary things in us. We just have to be willing to show up, even when showing up means a campsite twenty minutes from home instead of the original adventure we planned.
If you’re in a heavy season right now — if you’re tired in a way that sleep doesn’t fix — I want you to hear this:
You don’t have to have it together to come to God. You don’t have to wait
until things calm down to find rest. You can find it right now, right where
you are, in the middle of the mess and the stress and the uncertainty.
He’s already there waiting.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” — Matthew 11:28
Did this resonate with you?
Drop a comment below and tell me where you’re finding rest in this season — I’d love to
hear. And if you’re walking through something heavy right now, comment below or send me an email, I'd love to pray alongside you!