Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). God built rest into creation itself, yet many of us treat it as a luxury.
These six stories about rest and slowing down, retold in our own words, show what we miss when we rush and what we gain when we stop. Each ends with a takeaway for sermons or reflection.
Stories in this collection:
- The Brick and the Jaguar
- Christopher Robin and the Art of Doing Nothing
- Sharpen Your Axe
- Frank Lloyd Wright and the Tracks in the Snow
- Everything in Its Place: An Amish Bishop on Technology
- "You'll Never Get It If You Don't Slow Down": A Scene From Smoke
The Brick and the Jaguar
A widely shared story; its author is unknown.
Some years ago, a young and very successful executive was driving down a suburban street in his brand-new black Jaguar.
Suddenly a brick flew out from the pavement and thudded into the side of the car.
He slammed on the brakes, threw the car into reverse and roared back to the spot where the brick had come from. He leapt out, grabbed the boy who had thrown it and pushed him up against a parked car. What was that all about? he shouted. That's my new car! That brick is going to cost you a lot of money!
Please, mister, please, I'm sorry, the boy begged. I didn't know what else to do. I threw the brick because nobody else would stop.
Tears were running down the boy's face as he pointed to the other side of the parked car. It's my brother, he said. He rolled off the kerb and fell out of his wheelchair, and I can't lift him. Sobbing, he asked, Would you please help me get him back in his chair? He's hurt, and he's too heavy for me.
In a moment, the executive's anger melted away as he realised what had happened.
He lifted the injured boy back into his wheelchair, took out his handkerchief and gently wiped his scrapes and cuts. Then he stood and watched as the younger brother pushed him along the pavement towards home.
The executive never did repair the dent in his Jaguar's door. He kept it as a reminder not to go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick to get his attention.
Takeaway: God often speaks in whispers. If we never slow down, we may only hear him when something hits us.
Source: Traditional story; author unknown.
Christopher Robin and the Art of Doing Nothing
Winnie-the-Pooh is one of the best-loved characters in children's literature. And of course, Pooh is the bear who belongs to Christopher Robin.
At the end of A. A. Milne's The House at Pooh Corner (1928), we learn that Christopher Robin is soon going away to school. Nobody in the forest knows exactly why or where he is going. All they know is that it has something to do with learning things, like sums and letters and facts about faraway places.
Before he goes, Christopher Robin and Pooh have one last conversation in the forest.
Christopher Robin asks Pooh what he likes doing best in the whole world. Pooh thinks about it. What he likes best, he says, is going to visit Christopher Robin and being offered something nice to eat.
Christopher Robin says he likes that too. But what he likes doing best of all is Nothing.
How do you do Nothing? Pooh asks.
Well, Christopher Robin explains, it's when grown-ups ask you what you are going to do, and you say Nothing, and then you go off and do it.
Pooh decides that he likes that very much.
Then Christopher Robin tells him, a little sadly, that he is not going to be able to do Nothing so much any more.
It is a gentle, wistful moment. Growing up often means losing our capacity simply to be, to wander and wonder and rest, without having to justify it. Part of the gift of sabbath is learning to do Nothing again.
Takeaway: Growing up often means losing the ability to simply be. Sabbath rest invites us to recover it, not as laziness but as trust that God holds the world while we stop.
Source: A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner (1928).
Sharpen Your Axe
A traditional parable; its author is unknown.
A young man went up to the foreman of a logging crew and asked for a job. That depends, said the foreman. Let's see you fell this tree.
The young man stepped forward and skilfully brought down a great tree. The foreman was impressed. You can start on Monday, he said.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday went by. Then on Thursday afternoon the foreman came up to the young man and told him he could collect his pay on his way out that day.
The young man was startled. I thought you paid on Friday, he said.
Normally we do, said the foreman. But we're letting you go today because you've fallen behind. Our daily charts show you've dropped from first place on Monday to last place today.
But I'm a hard worker! the young man protested. I arrive first, I leave last, and I've even worked through my breaks!
The foreman could see that he was sincere. He thought for a moment, then asked, Have you been sharpening your axe?
No, sir, the young man replied. I've been working far too hard to take time for that.
Our lives can be like that. We get so busy that we never stop to sharpen the axe. Many people today seem busier than ever, yet less happy than ever. Perhaps we have forgotten that rest is not wasted time. It is how we stay sharp.
Takeaway: Rest is not wasted time. Like sharpening an axe, it is what makes good work possible. Even Jesus withdrew to quiet places to pray (Luke 5:16).
Source: Traditional parable; author unknown.
Frank Lloyd Wright and the Tracks in the Snow
A story Frank Lloyd Wright is said to have told; we have not been able to confirm its original source.
Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the greatest and most influential architects of the twentieth century. As a boy, he spent a lot of time on his uncle's farm near Spring Green, Wisconsin.
It was there, the story goes, that he had one of the most formative experiences of his life. He was about nine years old. It was a winter's day, and he and his uncle had just walked together across a field covered in snow.
At the far side, his uncle stopped and pointed back at the tracks they had left. The boy's footprints wandered all over the field. They went from the fence to the cattle to the woods and back again. His uncle's tracks went in a straight line from one side to the other.
Look how your tracks wander aimlessly all over the place, his uncle said, and see how mine go straight to my goal. There's an important lesson in that.
Years later, when Wright was a world-famous architect, he said that he had indeed learned an important lesson that day, but not the one his uncle intended.
He had decided right then, he said, not to miss most things in life, as his uncle had.
Sometimes the straight line is not the best path. A life that never wanders may miss the beauty along the way.
Takeaway: Focus matters, but so does wonder. A life lived only in straight lines may miss much of what God has placed along the way.
Source: Anecdote attributed to Frank Lloyd Wright, reported in a Focus on the Family newsletter (1992).
Everything in Its Place: An Amish Bishop on Technology
Many people first learned about the Amish of the United States through the 1985 film Witness. The Amish are known for avoiding much of modern technology. Many have no television, keep telephones out of the house, and do not connect their homes to the electricity grid.
To outsiders, such a way of life can seem harsh and restrictive. But the sociologist Tony Campolo described a conversation with an Amish bishop who explained the thinking behind it.
Most technology, the bishop suggested, had in fact had a negative effect on people's lives. Television was a good example. It brought violence and poor values into the home, and many people who wished they watched less found they could not stop.
Did that mean the Amish were against modern technology? No, the bishop said. They simply wanted to keep it in its proper place.
Take the telephone. The Amish were not against telephones as such. In fact, he had one installed at the end of the lane near his house. It was useful in an emergency, or for calling family and friends who lived far away. But why bring it into the house? A telephone, he said, intrudes into the most precious moments of life. You might be talking with your children or sharing something important with your wife, and when the phone rings, you let it interrupt you. The family might be at prayer, and you would stop to answer it. You might even be with your wife in bed, he said, and still let a ringing telephone interrupt you.
Electricity, too, could be a good thing if kept in its place. His community used electricity in their barns to keep the milk cool, but kept it out of their homes. Why? Because they felt it disrupted the natural rhythms of life. With electric lights, people stay up late instead of going to bed. With electricity come radios and televisions, which draw people into the outside world and away from family and community.
And tractors? If they used electricity in the barn, why not tractors in the fields? With a tractor, the bishop said, one person can plough a field alone. With a horse-drawn plough, the whole family needs to be involved. So choosing horses over tractors was a way of keeping the family together.
The Amish have perhaps thought harder about this than most of us. We may not agree with them on everything, but we could follow their lead in asking how to make technology serve our lives, our families and our rest, rather than letting it run them.
Takeaway: We need not adopt every Amish practice to learn from their question: does this technology serve our lives, or does it rule them?
Source: Tony Campolo, Following Jesus Without Embarrassing God (Word, 1997).
"You'll Never Get It If You Don't Slow Down": A Scene From Smoke
In the 1995 film Smoke, directed by Wayne Wang and written by Paul Auster, the centre of the story is a small cigar shop on a street corner in Brooklyn.
The shop is run by Auggie Wren, played by Harvey Keitel. Every morning at eight o'clock, Auggie crosses the road and takes a photograph of his shop on the corner. The angle never changes, only the weather, the light, the sky and the people passing by.
One of Auggie's regular customers is Paul Benjamin, a novelist played by William Hurt. Paul has not been able to write since his wife, Ellen, was killed by a stray bullet in a shooting on the street near the shop.
One day Paul notices Auggie's camera, and they start talking. Auggie explains that photography is his hobby, his art, his life's work. Paul says he would love to see the photographs, so Auggie takes him home to show him his collection.
Auggie brings out a stack of heavy albums and sets them in front of Paul. On the first page, mounted on black card, are four photographs of the cigar shop on the corner, all taken from exactly the same spot. Paul turns the page. The same again. And again. He begins flipping faster and faster through the pages.
Auggie puts a hand on the album to stop him. You'll never get it if you don't slow down, he says.
But they're all the same, Paul protests.
They are all the same, Auggie agrees, and yet each one is different from all the others. He has thousands of pictures of the same place, he explains. It is only one small corner of the world, but things happen there too, just as they do everywhere else. The albums are a record of his little spot.
So Paul slows down. He begins to look properly. And then, in one of the photographs, he sees someone he knows. It is his wife, Ellen, walking past the shop on an ordinary morning, before she died. He begins to cry.
Suddenly the photographs no longer look the same. It is just that you'll never see it if you don't slow down.
Takeaway: The precious things in life are often hidden in ordinary days. We only see them when we slow down enough to look.
Source: Smoke (1995), directed by Wayne Wang, written by Paul Auster.
Final thoughts
A brick, a bear, a blunt axe, footprints in the snow, a phone at the end of a lane and a wall of photographs. Each invites us to slow down and notice the life God has given us.
For further reading, Sopranu asks what makes a good life and lists some of the best books about the meaning of life, questions that invite us to step back and reflect.
Where could you build a little more rest into your week?
More stories you may like:
These stories are retold in our own words for teaching and reflection. Sources are credited under each story.
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