A Review of “Choosing Rest”

AMIA Communications

“If we are going to live out of a heart of rest, we must make the fundamental faith decision that no matter how deep or urgent the need is, it is ultimately not all up to us,” writes Sally Breedlove in Choosing Rest. “As we rest in this fundamental reality, the stress of what we cannot handle becomes a gate to rest.”

This idea, that we experience rest not through achieving an absence of need but in the midst of all that is lacking and outside of our control, is central to Choosing Rest. While many books on rest focus on the practice of Sabbath, Breedlove explores the mindset of Sabbath, as alluded to in the subtitle, “Cultivating a Sunday Heart in a Monday World.” Rather than prescribing principles for margin, she walks readers through a biblical journey toward peace not only in spite of our stresses and hardships but through them.

Bookending her work with the imagery of biblical gardens, the author frames our experiences as people living between Eden and the garden in the heavenly city. After painting a picture of rest through the creation story and other Scripture passages, Choosing Rest explores six areas in which the things that distress us can become pathways to experiencing rest, from external factors such as relationships with others to inner longings for “something more” to the mires of a “dark night of the soul.”

In each chapter, Breedlove encourages readers that rest of heart truly is found in the mess between Eden and heaven and urges them to see that peace is possible regardless of circumstances. Though she draws examples primarily from other women, the key messages of Choosing Rest challenge men and women alike:

“So the choice really is ours. We can hang onto our fears, insisting that until they are resolved, there is no way for us to enter into rest, or we can see those same fears as the door by which we can enter a rest far richer and sweeter than the rest that might arise from the tenuous arrangement of perfect circumstances. This rest flows out of the security of our relationship with God. It is a rest that believes that a life without all the pieces in place, a life in which we do indeed suffer lack, is still a life to celebrate, a good gift from a good God.”

The book concludes by bringing in two additional gardens that radically alter our experiences as sojourners between Eden and heaven: Gethsemane and the garden of Easter dawn. The final chapter reminds readers of Jesus’ surrender to the Father the night he was betrayed and his presence with us when we deeply sense the limitations of our humanness. And it offers encouragement that in the middle of our deepest grief and pain, Christ meets us and calls us by name.

Through it all, Breedlove builds on a premise stated early in the book: “From God’s perspective, rest is not an accessory blessing.” Through Scripture and realistic and compassionate exploration of the never-ending obstacles to peace of heart, Choosing Rest gives the reader confidence that rest is God’s gift for every believer in every season, and that it’s experienced richly amid life’s mess.