Relaxing in Christ can mean finding rest in the Lord and surrendering to His grace. The Bible says that Christ invites people to come to Him and cast their cares on Him. Some ways to relax in Christ include:
Prayer: Slow down and take time to pray.
Bible study: Spend time in God’s word to grow closer to Him.
Thankfulness: Practice thankfulness to find rest for your soul.
Planning rest: Plan rest into your day to feel less overwhelmed and stressed.
Focusing on refreshment: Focus on refreshment and relaxation, no matter where you are or what you’re doing.
Letting go: Let God handle things and cast all your anxiety on Him.
Remembering your limitations: Remember that Christ’s burden is light and He provides true freedom and grace.
Learning from Jesus: Jesus shows us how to be at peace by dealing with stress and temptations to sin.
Here are some ways Christians can relax:
Listen to worship music: Calming worship music can help manage stress and stay focused on acting righteously.
Surrender to God: Christians can ask God if they are praying in His will and give their lives, careers, and families over to Him in faith.
Read the Psalms: Reading the Psalms can help readers find renewal in God’s promises and experience peace.
Pray: Christians can take time to calm their mind, heart, and body before prayer.
Spend time with other Christians: Engaging with other Christians can provide encouragement and support.
Practice patience: Christians can trust in God and be patient and steadfast.
Use Christian relaxation scripts: Christian relaxation scripts can include guided imagery, prayer, worship, and Biblical meditation.
Realize nobody’s perfect: Christians can realize that nothing is perfect except God’s words.
Enjoy God’s unconditional love: Christians can enjoy God’s unconditional love.
Act in faith, not fear: Christians can act in faith, not fear.
Exchange perfectionism for God’s peace: Christians can exchange their perfectionism for God’s peace.
“Rest” is defined as “peace, ease or refreshment.” “Relax” means “to become loose or less firm, to have a milder manner, to be less stiff.” The Bible speaks quite highly of rest. It is a repeated theme throughout Scripture, beginning with the creation week (Genesis 2:2-3). God created for six days; then He rested, not because He was tired but to set the standard for mankind to follow. The Ten Commandments made resting on the Sabbath a requirement of the Law (Exodus 20:8-11). Notice that God said, “Remember the Sabbath.” It wasn’t something new; it had been around since creation. All God’s people and their servants and the animals were to have one day in seven to rest. The command to rest was not an excuse to be lazy. You had to work for six days to get to the Sabbath. The land also needed to rest (Leviticus 25:4, 8-12). God is very serious about rest.
God desires rest for us because it does not come naturally to us. To rest, we have to trust that God will take care of things for us. We have to trust that, if we take a day off, the world will not stop turning on its axis. From the beginning (Genesis 3), when we decided that we would start making all the decisions, mankind has become more tense and less able to relax. It was disobedience in the Garden that started the problem, but obedience now will bring the rest that God so desires for us (Hebrews 3:7 – 4:11). If one of the definitions of “relax” is “to become less firm,” then relaxing our grip on our own lives, careers, families, etc., and giving them over to God in faith is the best way to relax.
For the Christian, the ultimate rest is found in Christ. He invites all who are “weary and burdened” to come to Him and cast our cares on Him (Matthew 11:28; 1 Peter 5:7). It is only in Him that we find our complete rest—from the cares of the world, from the sorrows that plague us, and from the need to work to make ourselves acceptable to Him. We no longer observe the Jewish Sabbath because Jesus is our Sabbath rest. In Him we find complete rest from the labors of our self-effort, because He alone is holy and righteous. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). We can now cease from our spiritual labors and rest in Him, not just one day a week, but always.