Part 1 – The Human Need for Rest and Stillness
We live in a culture that runs on ambition. Push harder, achieve more, prove yourself. And while ambition drives success, it quietly drains the human system. Bodies ache for rest, minds spin in worry, souls grow restless.
Science confirms what we feel: the nervous system cannot thrive in constant overdrive.
- In stress, the sympathetic system pumps adrenaline and cortisol, keeping us on high alert.
- Over time, cortisol gets out of control, sleep weakens, the immune system falters, and exhaustion sets in.
- Eventually, the whole system collapses. This is burnout – the point where even willpower no longer works.
Rest is the antidote. When you stop, the parasympathetic system activates – heart rate slows, breath deepens, and the body begins to heal. But rest is only the first step. Beyond rest lies stillness.
Rest means you stop the activity. Yet stillness means you allow the deeper work of renewal to happen. Think of it like refueling a car: it isn’t enough to stop driving, the car must be completely still and turned off before the fuel can flow in.
Here is another picture: imagine carrying buckets of water to the ocean. You can try to add to your wholeness, wellbeing or healing – through diets, therapies, do more or do less, start new habits or break old ones. None of these are wrong. But compared to the ocean of renewal, they are just drops. Stillness is when you stop adding, and allow the ocean itself to wash over you. Stillness is when you discover that whatever you are chasing, is already in your possession.
Qualities like clarity, curiosity, calm, courage, creativity, compassion, and confidence help us enter that state. They help us step out of our own way. But even then, most people resist stillness. We would rather strive than stop.
Part 2 – Rest and Stillness in God’s Design
Scripture goes deeper. It doesn’t just recommend rest and stillness – it reveals them as essential to salvation, strength, and renewal.
Psalm 131 – The Weaned Soul
“I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother.” (Psalm 131:2)
Notice the two steps:
- Calmed – actively regulating the inner storm, like choosing to step out of fight-or-flight.
- Quieted – entering a deeper stillness, like a weaned child who no longer grasps or demands, but rests content.
This is the picture of a nervous system no longer agitated by ambition. True maturity isn’t about striving harder, but resting deeper.
Here’s a hidden mercy: if God blessed you abundantly while you were still driven by self-effort, it wouldn’t affirm who He created you to be. It would only feed your striving, pushing you beyond your limits until you break down and cry out, “God, I’ve done everything I can, and it’s still not working. Why aren’t You blessing me?”
Now you understand – He wasn’t withholding from you; He was rescuing you from the life you were never meant to sustain.
Isaiah 30:15 – Rest and Stillness as Strength
“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness [stillness] and trust is your strength.”
Here again are the two steps:
- Rest – stop striving, stop performing. This is acknowledging you can’t refill your own tank.
- Stillness – allow God’s Spirit to do the deeper work within you.
Rest is putting down the bucket. Stillness is letting the ocean wash over you, knowing that God rested because His works are finished. Stillness means you have learned to surrender to His finished works, so you can benefit from them.
Isaiah 40 – From Exhaustion to Renewal
“Even youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall; but those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength…” (Isaiah 40:30–31)
Here is the human pattern:
- Faint – physical fatigue, adrenaline worn out.
- Weary – inner depletion, cortisol out of control, soul discouraged.
- Fall – collapse, the system can no longer hold itself up.
And here is God’s promise:
- Those who wait – those who rest and become still – will be renewed.
- They will soar like eagles – lifted beyond their own strength.
- They will run without weariness – passionate without burning out.
- They will walk without fainting – steady, faithful, sustainable.
This is not poetic repetition. It’s a progression from collapse to resilience, from human depletion to divine renewal.
The Crucial Key – Willingness
But how do we enter this rest and stillness? If we try harder, we are only carrying a bucket to the ocean again.
Isaiah 30:15 ends with: “But you would not.” Humanity resists rest. We resist stillness. We prefer to control, to perform, to push. And in doing so, we block the very restoration we need.
The doorway is simple: willingness.
Not striving, not proving – just a willing heart.
When you express that willingness to God, you give Him access to you. And when He has access to you, you gain access to Him and His rest.
An Invitation
Everything you’ve been chasing – peace, meaning, joy, freedom, wholeness – is already found in being still.
Rest is knowing there is nothing you can add.
Stillness is letting God work in you, through you, and for you.
The deeper He can work in you, the more He can work for you and through you.
The invitation is simple:
Stop striving. Be willing. Be still. Let Him do His deep work in you.
If you want to experience the power of stillness in your life, treat rest with the same seriousness as your work. Schedule time to practice the guided meditations in the BeStill app that help you live out the truth we just explored. You’ll find them in the Calming Your Nervous System series — especially Quieting the Soul and From Exhaustion to Renewal
