Sunday was a great start to a new year at GRACE Church. I was encouraged to see you turning in your envelopes to invite God to RESET something in your life. Hundreds of you did that at BECA, and many more did it through our online stream. Some on line watchers have even sent their envelopes in.
It’s not too late if you want to participate. You can come to our information desk on Sunday and pick an envelope up. Be sure to turn in your envelope (self-addressed and sealed) to the same information desk. Be praying about what you wrote. We will be mailing the envelopes back to you in a few weeks. As I said on Sunday,
The God who made the universe and everything in it…knows you inside and out.
The God who turned chaos into order at creation… knows the mess you think you’ll never get out of.
The God who invented time… knows you think you don’t have enough of it.
The God who made human beings for relationships…knows that your relationships need help.
That God – is the one who RESET your life and give you the life you’ve always wanted.
This Sunday, I will continue in the RESET series with Rest for the Stressed.
I read in the New York Times about a study out of Harvard that is calling for more rest for people. The research found that male basketball players if they slept 10 hours a night would increase their shooting performance by an average of 9 percent. They shared another study from Ernst and Young that found that for each 10 hours of vacation that employees took, their year end performance ratings from supervisors improved by 8 percent. As athletes understand especially well, the greater the performance demand, the greater the need for renewal. When we’re under pressure, however, most of us experience the opposite impulse: to push harder rather than rest. This may explain why Americans continue to leave vacation days unused
The study concluded that the importance of restoration is rooted in our physiology. Human beings aren’t designed to expend energy continuously. Rather, we’re meant to pulse between spending and recovering energy.
We need rest and our work will even be more effective if we learn to rest. On Sunday, we’ll have a look at God’s time management plan. Turns our Harvard endorses what God has been saying from the beginning of creation!
It was great to meet some of the friends you invited to church last weekend after services. I hope you will continue to invite your friends for this very practical series.
I can’t wait for Sunday. I thank God for the privilege of being…
Your Pastor and Friend,
,
Dr. Marnie Crumpler, Senior Pastor