Howdy, and Happy New Year! Thanks for joining me on this journey through the Bible day by day. This year’s daily devotionals will be based on the Bible Project’s Biblical Storyline reading plan in the YouVersion Bible app. Read with me, and let’s seek to hear what God says to us each day. I am using the New Living Translation (NLT) of the Bible as my primary translation for our journey this year. I will compare interesting and important texts with the Christian Standard Bible (CSB), the New International Version (NIV), the New English Translation (NET), and The Message paraphrase. 

Feel free to share these devotionals with family members and friends. You can do so confidently, knowing there is nothing for sale now or ever on these pages. If you have suggestions or questions, send them my way! My email is david@davidgbowman.com. There is a sign-up link on my soon-to-be-renovated website (davidgbowman.com). 

Let’s engage together in the practice of hearing and obeying God, the most important lesson of Christian discipleship. May he speak his words of truth and life to our hearts every day.

––

Mark 6:30-32  The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught. Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat. So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. (NLT)

—

I did not rest well last night. My wife had a lot on her mind. 

(Let the reader understand.)

Once upon a time, I would take such an occasion as an opportunity to find a more restful location. However, I started using a CPAP around fifteen years ago, and relocating for rest in the middle of the night became more labor intensive and intrusive to the one attempting to participate in the hoped-for reverie of deep dozing.

I’m so tired that I wrote that last sentence thinking it sounded coherent. I’m also so tired that I’m not going to go back to fix it. 

One of God’s good gifts is rest. Read Genesis 1 and notice how rest precedes work each day. We are to work from a place of rest, not rest from our work. Of course, in the text from Mark 6, Jesus takes his disciples away for rest after an extended period of work. I guess you could say it works both ways. 

Big decisions are best made after a good night’s rest. “Sleep on it” is some of the best advice ever given. Rested minds make better decisions, just like rested muscles are capable of greater strength. 

This means that my wife will not be allowed to make big decisions today. Of course, neither will I. Maybe tomorrow, we can place periods where today we enter commas. Maybe tomorrow, when the New Year dawns bright, clear, and cold, we can make up our minds. To this end, I need to prevent my bride from seeing in the New Year tonight. She needs to be tucked away securely before the magic hour. This is not a big issue since I’m pretty sure she has seen the New Year arrive only two or three times in our almost forty years of marriage. 

I will console our Black Dog all by myself as fireworks and handguns pop away in the night. In other words, I will not be allowed to make any big decisions tomorrow. This is not a big deal in our home. The pastor who tied the knot when we got married said he and his wife had decided that he would make all the big decisions, and she would make the little ones. And, in their many years of marriage, they had never made a big decision. 

My bride and I learned that lesson well.

As you can see, we are finishing this year in something of a scramble. Company’s coming who couldn’t be with us for Christmas, decisions of size and scale apparent only to my wife and daughters loom, and our local granddaughter is storing up laughter in preparation for my visit. There’s a good chance I’m caught napping when they are deciding the next-level little stuff that means so much.

Trust me, a good nap beats decision-making almost every time. I will awake happily to whatever little old thing they say, just like every other day. Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” I hear and obey his command and entrust all of my outcomes to him who holds the whole world in his hands. 

—

I will work from a place of rest, and I will withdraw to rest in the presence and provision only Jesus provides. 

—

Our Father, thank you for the gift of rest. Empower me today and in the coming year to spend a third of my days asleep. Restore me and renew me evening by evening. Strengthen me by giving me deep rest. Prepare me for big decisions through sweet dreams. Teach me how to take a good rest. Amen.