Do You Rest?

Do you make time & space for rest in your calendar?

I'm not talking about time to sleep at night - although that's important & necessary.

I'm not talking about a few hours zoning out in front of show - although there's nothing inherently wrong with that sometimes.

I'm talking about making space in your life to really slow down. To disconnect from the work emails & messages. To really just be present in the moment that's right in front of you.

This is something God actually intended for us to do. In the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20, God says:

"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour & do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, not your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens & the earth, the sea, & all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day & made it holy." (Exodus 20:8-11)

Unfortunately, the religious leaders of early Israel had added a detailed list of what you could & could not do in the Sabbath to this. They made it about rules, while missing the heart of it.

But, you still see Jesus & His disciples practicing the principle of the Sabbath. Over & over in the gospels, we see Jesus taking time away from the crowds & demands.

But, in our always connected society, we've lost the ability to really rest. Even when we're not at work our phones have messages from work easily accessible. It's easy to just check it. And there's often an expectation that we will.

But, this isn't how we're meant to live. This isn't what God had in mind from the beginning of creation. The example God set & mandated for His people had a regular rhythm of rest.

The importance of rest has been emphasized for me in the last few months. I was forced into an extended season of rest. At first, I didn't know what to do with my phone being so quiet & so many of the apps I'd grown used to checking no longer being there. I didn't know how to fill my time.

But, I very quickly realized just how tired I was. I had been running so hard for so long that exhaustion had become my normal. I didn't know another way because it had been so long.

As I was forced to slow down, I had to learn to rest. In it, I learned to be fully present with those I was with. For the first time in a long time, I was truly & fully present when I was with my niece . . . & she noticed & commented on the difference. Even now, as I return to working, I'm realizing I need to figure out how to plan for regular rest in my life.

I don't believe we need to get caught up in specific things we can or cannot do on a specific day. That could lead to us missing the point as the religious leaders in Jesus' day had. But, we need to create regular times of rest in our lives. Times where we disconnect from the demands of life & do things we enjoy - that fill us up.

A number of year ago, I heard a pastor describe the concept of a Sabbath in two words. Those two words have kept coming back to mind for me recently. Neither word is about a specific day or length of time or any other rules. They're concepts that can help us to make the space for rest - whether it's an actual day, or an afternoon, or a morning, or a longer period of time.

Pray & Play

PRAY: A Sabbath is time set aside to connect with God. A conversation in prayer without the usual limits that every other day may bring.

PLAY: A Sabbath is time to do things that bring you joy - just because they're enjoyable to you. Things that fill you up.

So, my question to you as I wrap this up: How can you make time to rest - time for Sabbath - a regular part of your life? What does it look like for you to spend time praying & playing regularly?

Learning to Rest

When was the last time you rested?

I'm not talking so much about when you to bed each night. I'm talking about rest from the busy-ness of life. I'm talking about intentionally created space in your calendar to rest.

Rest is the first of the rhythms for life Rebekah Lyons talks about in her (soon to be released) book Rhythms of Renewal. While the entire book was full of good stuff, this section was the most challenging for me.

As much as I know is my head how important rest is, I don't often do a good job of living this out. Even as I read through the chapters in this section, full of practical suggestions that seem easy on paper, I knew how much I struggle with this one.

As I started reading the beginning of this section on  rest, I knew it was something I need to learn and practice more of in my life. And Rebekah's words reminded me of why it's important:

"Rest precedes blessing. We don't have to run to earn rest; we run fueled by a posture of rest."

Our fuel for all we do comes from rest. Rest has to come first.

One of the things Rebekah talks about in this section is the idea of Sabbath. It's really easy to write Sabbath off as an Old Testament practice that we don't need anymore. But, I think we miss out on something when we do that.

Yes, Sabbath was part of God's Law with Israel in the Old Testament, but it wasn't limited to that. We actually see the first example of Sabbath in the creation story in Genesis 1. After creating for six days, God rested on the seventh day. God did include Sabbath in His covenant with Israel, but it appears to me that Sabbath goes beyond that too.

So, why do we need Sabbath today?

I appreciated the words Rebekah wrote on it:

"Your value as a human being isn't found in what you produce; it's found in who you are in Christ - a person designed in the image of God to glorify him forever. From the beginning, God designed his creation to be more abundant, fulfilled, and joyful when we work from a place of rest and renewal."

When we create space for Sabbath, we're able to live from this. And it changes everything.

"When we intentionally Sabbath - stop striving so much - we create space for healing, wholeness, and refreshment. It's a truth built into the design of things."

Without this space, we miss out on much. And we don't do well at allowing God to work in us. We have to prove our worth by what we do.

"Our worth is found in the God who loves us, who created rest for our good."

So, if it's for our good, why do we avoid it?

Sometimes it's because we've bought the lies of our culture that we can't rest and that our worth comes from what we do. Sometimes it's because we're afraid of what we might realize if we stop. Sometimes it's because we're not sure how to stop.

But, as I reflected on it for myself, I realized another reason. Sometimes we see it as a legalistic practice we want to avoid.

Growing up, there was a family across the street that spent a lot of time with because the kids were same ages as my sisters and I. We had a lot of fun together and the rules for what was allowed and not allowed were very much the same. The noticeable differences in our families came on Saturdays. That was the one day of the week we didn't spend much, if any, time with them.

The family was Seventh-Day Adventist and Saturdays were a Sabbath for them. Growing up, all my childhood brain saw was a long list of things my friends weren't allowed to do that day - no jumping on the trampoline, no riding bikes, no street hockey or basketball, no TV or movies, no card games, and only certain board games were okay.

For a long time, that my association with Sabbath. It was just a list of things not allowed that made the day really boring. So, when people talked about our need for Sabbath, I resisted it. My understanding of what Sabbath actually is had to be changed.

What comes to mind when you think of Sabbath?

Are there ways it needs to change?

When is the last time you had a Sabbath in your life?

What would it look like for you to have Sabbath in your life?

Sabbath

Sabbath

Rest from busy-ness

Stopping the running

Breaking from expectation

Pray

Telling God your thoughts

Listening for His response

A two-way conversation

Play

Doing things just for fun

Laughter and enjoyment

Learning to "waste time" again

What Should Sabbath Look Like?

How do you live Sabbath in a busy, always-on world?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about being challenged with the idea of Sabbath. (You can read that post here.) Since I wrote that post, I've been wrestling with what it looks like for me to really make it a part of my life.

How do I live Sabbath in a busy world?
How do I live Sabbath in our always connected world?
How do I live Sabbath without it just becoming a day full of legalistic rules of what I can and cannot do?

I don't think it's something where we can tell each other what it should look like. When we try to tell someone else exactly how it should look, we're in great danger of wandering into legalism. It's okay if the details of what a Sabbath looks like are different from each other.

What matters is where our heart is at. It's the attitude that makes it a Sabbath or not. We have to start there when we look at creating a Sabbath in our lives.

The more I've wrestled with this in my own life, the more I've come to appreciate the way my pastor described some guiding thoughts for a Sabbath:

Pray & Play

Two words that don't tell you exactly what you can and cannot do, but capture what a Sabbath should be.

Pray: This is about our relationship with God. Time to talk to God and to listen to what He's saying to us.

Play: Fun. Activities we enjoy. A break from some of our usual responsibilities.

What falls into each of these categories will look different for each of us. What is play to one person, may be work to another. What spending time in conversation looks like for another may not work for someone else.

As I've been walking on this journey, I've realized that sometimes it's a bit of trial and error to figure it out. Some things will be what you need for a Sabbath and some won't. I think that learning what it is for you is a key part of it because it takes us to a deeper relationship with God. As we're figuring it out, we're pursuing God.

I believe God is issuing an invitation to all of us to engage in this journey of relearning how to have a Sabbath. Of learning how to make regular days for us to pray and play again.

For me, it's been about learning to disconnect from normal responsibilities with work and ministry - not because they're not important, but because I'm better able to engage there fully when I have regular breaks from them. About learning, again, how to "waste time" - doing something just because I enjoy it, not because it's accomplishing anything. About realizing that the vegging out in front of the TV I used to call my break really isn't as refreshing as I thought it was (doesn't mean I don't still do that sometimes, it just means I have a different mindset about why I'm doing it).

What about for you?

How are you learning to live Sabbath in a busy world?
How are you learning to live Sabbath in our always connected world?
How are you learning to live Sabbath without it becoming a day full of legalistic rules of what you can and cannot do?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this subject. Leave them in the comments below.

Thinking About Sabbath

Fall often feels like it brings with it a return a full schedule. All the usual programs and lessons begin in our communities. Ministries start up again at church. A return to school for some.

It can seem like a calendar that had space in it over the summer is quickly filled up completely again. This feels good for a while, but often feels overwhelming in not too long, as we look at a calendar with barely enough time to run from one thing to the next. We begin to miss the days when we didn't have to hurry out the door, the time spent camping, the blank spaces on our calendars.

And, I think we miss it because that's what we were created for. We weren't created to always be running with overflowing calendars, and to always be connected to everyone through our phones. We miss the blank spaces in our calendars, the quiet times, because we were created to need them.

As my summer drew to a close, it seemed I was hearing a lot about the importance of Sabbath in our lives, about our need for it. A sermon at church and a couple books I picked up for other reasons were all about it.

It's not something I've heard a lot about over the years. Even though it's one of the Ten Commandments we seem to like to ignore this one. And, it's never been one I was much inclined to really look at.

My association with what Sabbath was about for a long time came from another family in our neighbourhood growing up. They had kids the same age as my sisters and I, and many similar family values, so we spent a lot of time playing with them - except on their Sabbath. It's not that they weren't allowed to play with us that day, but more that their list of things they weren't allowed to do on their Sabbath was so long there was very little of our usual activities and games we could play. For a long time that heavily influenced my thoughts and attitudes about Sabbath.

But, my those have changed and been challenged recently as I've heard more about it. In the past, I could give you the theological arguement about why Sabbath was important, but I had no interest in it and didn't see the need for it in my own life. I didn't want a day full of rules about what I could and couldn't do.

But, I've realized lately that's not what it's about at all. It's not about rules. That's not why God put the Sabbath in His Ten Commandments. It's about the space we need in our lives- for rest, for fun, for listening to God, for taking the break from the usual demands of our lives.

So, maybe it's time for me to look at Sabbath differently. Time for me to reconsider it for my own life. And maybe it's that time for you as well.

I don't know yet what this looks like in my life, but I'm quickly realizing I have to plan for it. Creating the space won't just happen. I'm much better at filling up all the spaces on my calendar, rather than leaving the blank spaces alone.

What about you? Do you need to create a Sabbath in your life?

Whether it's a day a week, a half a day, or even a few hours, we all have to start somewhere with it, and see where it goes from there.

What does it need to look like for you?

We're all different, so what a Sabbath looks like isn't something we can dictate for another person.

What would bring rest and fun for you? What would it look like for you to disconnect for that time from the usual demands of life?
How can you create space to really hear from God in that time?

We're all going to answer these questions differently. That's why we can't make Sabbath all about rules - about things you can or cannot do. What answers these questions for one of us, might not be the answer for another person. The important part is that we make the time.

In our busy, hyper-connected world maybe we need to take the fourth commandment a little more seriously than we have been.