Take A Nap

Afternoon naps.

I know. This is a worship blog.  What the heck does an afternoon nap have to do with anything?

My whole life growing up my dad would come home from work and take a 5 minute power nap.  He said it reenergized him for the rest of the night.

I didn’t get it until recently.

I have two kids.  It was not long ago that they both still took naps.  And over the past few years, I have come to love joining them in that rhythm. 

It started out on Sundays.  I would come home from church, and flip on a football game and fall asleep for my weekly afternoon nap. 

Then it became more severe.  Any day I got the chance, I'd take a nap.  And I had forgone football.  Then it became shades drawn, sound machine on, hoddie over my eyes kind of naps. 

Sometimes they only last 15 minutes.  Other times they go 45 minuets, sometimes even an hour and a half.  I logged a 3+ hour nap not long ago….

Most people hate naps.  Well, they don’t hate the nap but they hate the ‘fog’ they wake up in.  Me?  I’m a nap fog junkie.  I love the fog. 

It may sound crazy, but the think I love the most is that when I wake up my mind is stilled.  It is no longer racing in a hundred different directions.  I love the sense of refreshing I wake with.

The most valuable thing I have discovered is that my afternoon nap reinforces God’s mandate of rest.  I am a DOer – I get stuff done.  And when I start, I have a hard time shutting my email, my cell phone, my brain and my responsibility off.

But naps are my reminder that I am not anyone’s savior.  I’m not meant to carry the weight of my world.

Naps remind me that I have limits.  And if I ignore those limits, I will crash.  I get sick, get irritable, and lose perspective.

Naps remind me that it’s equally important what I choose not to do as it is what I choose to do.

Let me unpack that one for a minute. 

A few years back, I worked on a record in Nashville with some of the music industry A list players.    They blew my mind how proficient and polished they were at their craft.  But the thing that stood out to me most of all what not what they played but what they DIDN’T play. 

They left space in the music.  And a lot of it!

That space created room for something beautiful to take place.  That space meant that there wasn’t always noise.  That space meant that when something did happen it was even more significant, meaningful and powerful.   And it meant that things could naturally develop and grow organically rather than always being jammed in to crevices.

The same is true in our lives.  When we create space, we make room for significance to happen. 

Naps are my reminder that I don’t have to force everything. That sometimes the best thing is to take a step back and let things be. 

So my question to you today is this: what rhythms and practices in your life help you keep perspective of who you are and who you’re not?