Some of us feel guilty when we stop. There is always one more thing to do, one more person who needs us. Resting feels lazy.
Jesus saw his friends that tired, and he did something about it.
A busy day
Jesus had sent his twelve closest followers out into the villages, two by two, to help people and tell them about God. Now they came back to him, full of stories. They told him everything they had done.
But there was no quiet. Crowds of people kept coming and going. The Gospel of Mark, one of the four accounts of Jesus's life, says they did not even have time to eat.
Come away
Jesus looked at his worn-out friends and said this.
And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.
Mark 6:31 · King James VersionThe original Greek
καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· Δεῦτε ὑμεῖς αὐτοὶ κατʼ ἰδίαν εἰς ἔρημον τόπον καὶ ἀναπαύσασθε ὀλίγον. ἦσαν γὰρ οἱ ἐρχόμενοι καὶ οἱ ὑπάγοντες πολλοί, καὶ οὐδὲ φαγεῖν εὐκαίρουν.
Found in Codex Vaticanus (about AD 325), Codex Sinaiticus (about AD 350).
A desert place meant a quiet, empty place, away from the towns. So they got in a boat and went off by themselves.
The crowds followed them, and Jesus ended up feeding five thousand people that day. But he had tried. He wanted his friends to rest, and he said so out loud.
What it means for you
Jesus himself often went off alone to pray, sometimes early in the morning before anyone was awake. He did not think rest was selfish. He thought it was part of loving people well.
If you are tired, from work, from caring for a sick parent, from raising kids, from just getting through, you are allowed to stop for a while. Not because you have earned it. Because he invited you. "Come away and rest a while" was said to people just like you.