This book blessed my soul. It said so much that needs to be said, yet we never hear. Along the way you get a good understanding of what the Bible tells us about rest. This book is not “get apart and rest”, or even “stop and smell the roses along the way”. No, though those type books are popular in our exhausting age, this book goes much deeper in the concept of rest. We don’t rest because we don’t even know what it is. John Koessler gives us exactly what we need to get our thinking straight.

He explains how our thinking is skewed these days and affects us as Christians and especially those in ministry. We fall into what he describes as “the productivity trap”. It has come to us from the business world. We now assume busier is better. We always want to exceed what we have done before. He says,”The church is driven by bottom line just as much as a company whose lifeblood is sales revenue.” We even to fail to see that worship is a wonderful thing and critically important, though we might feel we aren’t actually doing anything.

We get reduced to selling our brand–our particular church. We change our worship to consumerism. He says, “Visitors are treated like consumers and the church’s members are employees whose main job is to promote the brand. They do not worship; they produce. ” How incredibly perceptive is what he shares.

He used the Sabbath and Christ’s saying “I will give you rest”to explain the idea of rest. Rest is trusting God. He says, “Rest is a practice because the ‘work’ of rest is rooted in the finished work of God.”

There is so much more here. This book is exceedingly valuable. I wish all of us would read it and take it to heart.  

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.