This year I have been thinking a lot about rest as I have been practicing this spiritual discipline for the first time in my life. It has been a great deal of learning and experimenting to understand what God meant when He said, “Keep the Sabbath Holy.”
For some context I grew up in a Christian home but we never practiced a regular Sabbath. Sundays we would go to church in the morning and youth group in the evening, but we did not set any other guidelines for the rest of our day. I can also remember missing church on multiple occasions for soccer games or school events. So it wasn’t until this past year that this topic even came up in my life because I started working in full-time ministry and in the church culture you are given a specific day, usually Mondays, as your day off. I can remember thinking when I first began this job that I knew I wanted to use my Mondays to practice a Sabbath because it was already built into my schedule. It seemed like it would be a waste if I didn’t at least try to rest. So I embarked on a journey that has been absolutely life changing and has deeply impacted my relationship with the Lord. And it has not been easy, Mondays are difficult because it is the day that the world is starting their week and beginning to work, and here I am trying to push that away and find deep soul rest. It’s also been a challenge because I live on my own about 500 miles away from my immediate family, and most of my friends are at work on a Monday. So it means that I have to be creative with how I spend my time. But as a result I have learned so much that I wanted to share some insights I have gained.
Why we rest
First, I want to start with the reason and purpose for Sabbath rest. We rest because we are humans, made in the image of our Creator God who rested on the seventh day after creation. God worked hard for six days and then at the end He looked at what He made, declared it to be good and then He rested. Since we are made in His image, we were made to work in this same pattern of six work days with one day of rest. Second, it is a command that God has given. I think it’s pretty funny that in the list of the Ten Commandments, Sabbath actually comes before do not murder. We would never think to go and shoot someone when we are angry, but as Christians we don’t think twice before looking at our emails on a Sunday.
Most people would actually say that it is difficult to take a full day off from work. They feel anxious or a deep need to continue being productive. And this is actually a heart problem. When we find ourselves in a place where we can’t stop working, we have come to a place where we are looking for work to define us. We are trying to prove something to ourselves or to the people around us. We are trying to prove that we have meaning or that we are a hard worker based on what we accomplish. But the truth is that we can only find true rest in the Gospel. We can rest because our eternal work was finished when Jesus took our sins on the cross. We no longer need to strive for perfection, or to prove ourselves through work, because on the cross Jesus said, it is finished. And now we get to work from a place of rest. Knowing in our hearts that we are completely loved, accepted in Christ and cherished with or without our work, or success, or money and we can work from a place of being loved.
It took me a long time to really understand this and it is still something I am trying to grasp. But I learned that when I was looking for ministry to fulfill me and I was trying to prove myself with great programs and a full schedule, that I would get to Monday and still feel anxious and tired. But when I truly rest is what Christ has done for me and how loved I am, then I can look at the week and be grateful for the opportunity to work and I look at the week ahead excited for what is to come. And I enjoy the day off to rest my identity in Christ.
Rest starts the week
One of the lessons I have learned is to start the week with rest. This is why we normally practice a Sabbath on a Sunday. For me in the church world, I am working all day on Sunday and my week starts on Monday with rest. This changes the mindset that I am working from a place of rest, and not resting from work. We don’t go through our week and then crash at the end with a day off. But on the day you are most full of energy and ready to start, you actually rest. This is because our work should come as an overflow of knowing how loved we are in Christ. We must spend this time resting to know his love for us and then go out and cultivate the world.
An example of this can be seen in workouts. I go to a Crossfit gym and we sometimes do a workout that has four different workouts for one minute each and then one minute of rest. And you do this for four or five rounds. We usually start the workout with a run, the abs, then burpees, then push-ups and end with the rest. By the time you get to the last minute you are completely wiped and crash into the rest. But in the Sabbath perspective, if our week was the set of exercises, we would start with one minute of rest and then begin the other exercises.
Rest is humility.
When we rest we are admitting to ourselves and to God that we cannot do it all. We are finite creatures that have a certain capacity for the amount of work we can do. We were not made to be computers that run non-stop 24/7. We must humble ourselves before God to say that I can’t do it all. In the same way that you need to rest every day when you sleep, you also need to rest for one full day a week as a reminder that we have a limit.
Rest is trust.
In the same way when I lay down to sleep each night I am trusting that God will keep the world turning and He will make the sun rise in the morning, I am unconsciously saying to God that I trust Him as I lay down my work for the day and rest for the night. We have the same opportunity to do this once a week on a Sabbath. In practicing a Sabbath we are saying to God, I know that I could be working or accomplishing something or be productive, but I am trusting that you will keep the world running while I rest for one day. And it can be tough to trust. When it’s something we haven’t practiced. But I will tell you that trust grows as you continue to practice.
Rest is a reminder.
Rest is a wonderful reminder that God doesn’t need us but He chooses to use us in His plan for the world. I am amazed at how God could actually accomplish everything He wants to on His own without humans. But he invites us into his plan and his great story. And when we rest we are reminded of how much he doesn’t need us. When we take a day off and are not productive we see that the world keeps turning, the sun comes up and nothing has collapsed and God can do all of this with or without us.
This was a funny realization for me one day when I woke up in my apartment all alone and I didn’t turn on my phone for the day. I realized that I could have died and no one would have really known for a while. And the world would have kept going. Maybe it was a little dark, but it was helpful to realize that God doesn’t need me but He chooses me. And I can let go of the anxieties I have that I have to do something or worry about what will happen if I don’t get something done. Because it is never done and it is never finished and God will accomplish it with or without us.
Rest is productive.
If we continue thinking of rest like sleep than we realize that taking one day a week to not be productive and rest is actually one of the most productive things we can do. As a college athlete I was always reminded to get a good night’s sleep after a hard training day. Because in training we are tearing our muscles apart, but only during sleep does our body have the opportunity to repair these muscles and make improvements to our body. In the same way our Sabbath rest is the productive time where our bodies and our minds are being restored after a week of being torn down as we give our energy and creativity to our work.
Rest is gleaning.
I heard this sermon once about the origins of gleaning in the Biblical history. And in those days it was culturally accepted to not plow the fields to the very end, but to leave some left over. Then when the workers took their day of rest, the widows and the servants were allowed to glean in the fields what was left. And because the owners of the field rested one day, and didn’t finish all the work, it allowed some to be left over for others. This is the same for our work today, when we put it down and say I am finished for the week, even though all the work is not finished we are providing work for others to do. We are allowing other people to glean from the work we don’t do.
After learning all these lessons through reading and listening to sermons on Sabbath I started to put these principles into practice in my life. To say it was challenging is an understatement. It’s a funny thing that we are basically given one day of vacation every week, and yet when I woke up on those first few Mondays, I was filled with anxiety because I didn’t know what to do or how to spend my time. What did it look like for me to rest?
It's interesting that we can go our whole lives and just keep producing or working and never take the time to reflect on the things that actually are life giving. And this is where I found myself, I didn’t know what to do with all this time I had been given. So I started testing and trying out a few things and I gave myself room for failure.
I knew I wanted to start my days in the Word and have really intentional quiet time with God. And it’s been really wonderful to set aside a large amount of time to listen and pray and dive into his word. I also love to journal and I would spend some time journaling about the previous week or brain dump ideas. Early on I found that I was so tired that I would usually have to take a nap after my quiet time and then I would even take a nap later in the afternoon. I was stunned by just how tired I was and I never would have realized it if I didn’t take the time to slow down. My body was craving the rest physically, emotionally and spiritually.
I decided on some guidelines for the day based off different teachings I had heard. I knew I didn’t want to watch television as this would fall in the category of leisure and not rest. I wanted to stay away from social media as it is never restful for my soul to scroll through my Instagram feed for hours. I was also not going to do any work or meet with or text students. This was really hard because I wanted to start planning for the week on Monday.
As I have continued I have made lists of activities that I find to be restful or life giving so that I can reference them and choose what I want to do during the day. This list consists of activities including, painting, biking, journaling, hiking, baking, painting my nails, reading, going for a walk, or playing an instrument. It’s good to proactively plan for the day and have materials or books available when you need them. Also to prepare food ahead of time. I don’t go grocery shopping on Mondays so I have to shop and meal prep on Saturday. I also don’t do any “to-do” list items. This was a suggestion from a friend to keep the day unproductive. Sabbath is not a day to get things done outside of our 9-5 job, instead it is a day not based on productivity and only based on rest. That can be really hard sometimes when I see a full day where I could get so much done.
I also have put some restrictions on phone usage during the day. I recently got an alarm clock and it has been so good for my health not to use the alarm on my phone. If we follow the science that we should not have our phones in our bedroom when we sleep because they disrupt our rest, then the same is true when we are resting on a Sabbath. Technology can disrupt our rest through texts, emails or endless social media scrolling. So most days I try to keep my phone off for the entire day. If I want to call someone or check about plans than I only turn it on at 12pm and 5pm and I don’t use any apps other than texts or calls. This was so hard at first, especially since I live on my own. There were some days where I would wake up and my phone was off and I felt so disconnected. I had these thoughts run through my head that I could die and no one would know for at least a little while. But then it became a gift to feel free. To not feel the need to answer texts because I didn’t see them come in, and the chance to be fully present.
I have found that being with people who I really love is so life-giving. It’s wonderful to have great alone time during the day but I love having people over for dinner in the evening and hosting good friends for a good meal. I try to schedule this time with them the week before and then meet them at their house or host them in my apartment. I’ve also started to get creative with other friends in the area who work from home. I try to go for a walk with them while they are on their lunch break for the day.
I usually let myself sleep if I am feeling tired. I don’t fight it like a baby needing a nap. As soon as I can feel my body “crying” I know it’s time for more sleep.
I recently had a friend say she was nervous about taking a Sabbath because sitting on her bed all day reading didn’t sound like fun. I challenged her saying that I love getting to slow down and read for a portion of the day, but I also love doing things that are active and life giving. I heard Sabbath once described as Christmas once a week. We do all the things on Sabbath that we do on Christmas, we eat the best food, nap, hangout with fun people and celebrate. I asked her what she would want to do on her ideal day that fit in the categories of rest, worship and celebration. And then we get to have fun with what we do.
And most days when I put these good things into practice, I am left feeling so grateful. I just can’t help but thank God that He is a good father who gives us the gift of a day of vacation once a week. It is such a beautiful reminder of God’s love for us. That he is not a God who is a slave driver who tells us to work every day and that we need to prove ourselves to him. But he is such a good father who gives us a day off as a gift to find our true and deepest rest in Him alone.
Picture from this past Monday's adventures.
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