Jack Bauer's Life in Jesus Christ's Name

I've been thinking a lot about rest lately; for the past few days I've been fighting a virus and so my body needed a lot of rest. But my resting during my illness felt a lot like my regular home routine the rest of the time, and that worried me. I think I rest too much. I think I hide behind a perceived need for more rest rather than engaging my non-student time to work on the other ministries I feel called to.

"I'm working on..." I started to say on the phone a week ago. "No, wait; that's not true. I say I'm working on..." And I laughed. Is it funny, though, to admit I'm brushing aside work I do believe God wants done?

I used to have a real problem with series. How, I asked myself while reading the 17th book of so-and-so's life, could that many things happen to one person? "24" is one of my all-time favorite television shows, and I'm having the same problem with it.

But the Bible shows me that when the apostles, and the prophets, and Jesus himself were awake, they were working. Jesus knew when to rest, and when to pray, and when to sit back and let people figure out what they wanted to ask him. But even those things were purposeful. Even Jesus' rest time took him in the direction God called him to go.

Maybe I should pray for Jack Bauer's life. Not so much the shouting and killing people parts, but the active, pursuing, driven, single-minded-purpose part. What if I were to ask God to direct my rest, and my prayer, and my sitting back, so my passive time readied me to serve Him, and my active time always carried out the work I'm called to, in parish ministry, writing, speaking, caring for friends and family?

In other words, do the cushions of my couch keep God's insistent voice from reaching my ears? Do I dare admit that truly, I get too much rest? And, since an admission is only good with a new decision, am I willing to put aside the rest I don't need and start working?