Jesus and mental health: “Get some rest.”
Posted by Becky Watson Lee on 30 July 2025
I wonder if your internal monologue is the same as mine when you read that sentence. I’m thinking, Really? I thought Jesus said ‘deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.’ That doesn’t sound much like rest. Following Jesus is surely the opposite of rest. I mean, how can we rest? There’s always more people to serve and help, always more church activities to be involved in, more sin to be battling against. Rest for Christians is way, way, way in the future. Rest is for heaven.
Any of those thoughts resonate? Well, if they did, take a moment to read these verses a few times, and let Jesus’ words surprise you:
Jesus went around teaching from village to village. Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits.
These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. […]
The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
Granting them His authority, Jesus sends his twelve apostles out to teach and serve. They take nothing with them, they are reliant solely on the generosity of those they meet. Such authority – in preaching, driving out demons, and healing – unsurprisingly draws a crowd, and they are overwhelmed, barely even having a chance to eat.
Just imagine those twelve men, hungry and tired, without resources and constantly under pressure to keep going. And what does Jesus say to them? ‘Deny yourselves! You are bearing your cross!’? No. Jesus sees that they are spent, physically, emotionally and spiritually. And so, he invites them to rest.
It is true that Jesus called His disciples to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23). It is a call to follow His pattern, His example of a self-sacrificial, generous life. But very often, we think we know what Jesus means without giving any consideration to how He actually lived out His own instructions.
“Jesus sees that they are spent, physically, emotionally and spiritually. And so, he invites them to rest.”
There are countless examples in the gospels of Jesus withdrawing from the large crowds to get some rest (e.g. Luke 5:16, Matthew 14:13, Mark 1:35). He made sure that He had time to spend alone with His Father God in a quiet place, to be spiritually renewed and refreshed in His ministry. He knew that in order to keep serving and keep living such a radically generous life, He needed rest, and He prioritised it.
So when Jesus calls us to follow Him in the path to the cross, we’d do well to remember that Jesus’ path to the cross was marked by a pattern of rest.
Perhaps you are a survivor of spiritual abuse, who experienced Jesus’ call to deny yourself as a weapon in the hands of your perpetrator. Perhaps when you hear it, it brings up feelings of submission, fear, guilt. You may have neglected your needs for a very long time. Let me encourage you: hear Jesus’ call to get some rest. It’s OK to care for yourself. More than that, it’s Christ-like.
Perhaps you are a church leader or church member, stuck in a rut of resentful service. You feel that Jesus’ call to deny yourself is a crushing burden, a standard you can never attain. So you just keep trying and trying and trying, and you’re close to burning out. Let me encourage you: hear Jesus’ call to get some rest. It’s OK to care for yourself. More than that, it’s Christ-like.
Jesus says, follow me: get some rest.
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