Rest: Experiencing God's Peace in a Restless World

Rating:
Summary: A complete look at rest
Review: This book provides an overview of the topic of rest from a physcial, mental/emotional, relational and spiritual perspective and proposes that one cannot truly find rest unless all facets are involved. Building from the premise that the heart of rest is a spirit at peace with God through Christ, Dr. Tan devotes several chapters to deepening spiritual rest through the practices of solitude and silence, surrender, simplicity and Sabbath keeping. I found these chapters very helpful and full of insightful suggestions. After developing the concept of spiritual rest, Dr. Tan has a helpful chapter on sleep (again from an all around approach that sleep restores the body, mind and spirit) and offers guidelines for those who have difficulty sleeping. As to the physical component of rest, there is also a lot of helpful information in the chapter on stress management. I found this chapter to be one of the best in the book as it included information on how the physical effects of stress, how to change our thinking to combat emotional/mental stress and provided a solid biblical foundation for stress management. As to the relational aspect of stress, Dr. Tan includes chapters on spiritual community and servanthood outlining how rest is not solely for our personal gain, how the church (and particularly small groups) can be a haven of rest and how an attitude of servanthood can aid us in having restful relationships. This book includes an extensive bibliography and end notes. I highly recomment this book to anyone wanting to learn more on the topic of rest.