Remember the Sabbath
In the faith circles I have been a part of, the idea of Sabbath has only been conceptual, not habitual. It felt far off. No one took the time to practice it. No one took the time to talk about it. Often, I got the impression it was time to call the laborers to the field! There was work to be done! This did not set me up for longevity in ministry. Burnout loomed over me, and I hadn’t even finished my undergraduate biblical studies, let alone full-time ministry! Something had to change, so I started journeying through the scriptures and asking God for answers that would help a recovering overcommitter fan the flame again.
A few days into my study, every single person I was caught in conversation with answered their “how are you?” with one word: busy. To each of these friends, I asked if they had given themselves permission to rest. A resounding “no” was the answer I anticipated, and it was the answer I quickly received.
For many of us, the default rule of life demands our production and performance. I fear we have allowed ourselves to accept busyness as fruitfulness, when in reality these two things don’t go hand-in-hand all the time. There are so many good things we can do for the Lord, but “good” doesn’t always equal “fruitful.”
Early on in ministry, I equated my number of ministry commitments to my level of faithfulness. My plate was always overflowing, and I justified it because I trusted the Lord would give me the strength and endurance to “get it all done.” After living under this assumption for three of my undergraduate years, I was tired. I didn’t give myself permission to rest because when I looked around to my mentors and leaders in ministry, they were still busier than I was! Too often I witnessed these people receiving 40-hour pay checks in return for 24/7 availability. Something didn’t add up, and eventually many of them agreed with that conclusion in the form of two-week notices and desperate cries for help.
Was this what it meant to “work for the Lord?” I continued witnessing and researching, and God was gracious to teach me that the fruit of ministry without Sabbath is burnout, which has never been God’s desire for His people. There is an urgency for God’s people to discover what is good and true about God’s best for us, and I’m starting to believe it has everything to do with Sabbath.
From the beginning, Sabbath was a part of God’s intended rhythm of life. God works, forms, makes and creates, and on the seventh day He rests. God didn’t rest because He needed it. God didn’t stop creating because He was tired. God’s rest on the seventh day has everything to do with what He desires for us. God’s rest on the seventh day reveals to us what God believes about His creation. He rested because it was enough, and it was good.
God desires to invite us into that rest because He declared us good before we even started work of our own. Further, in the book of Exodus, I love how God reminds His people of this truth by freeing and leading them into the desert so that they will find their way back to Him and rest. He reminds his people to keep the Sabbath, and in doing so, he reminds His people that they were not created to be bound by performance and production. The Sabbath is a sacred space to rest in Him and remember who we are, that we were enough before we even started working.
Busyness has forced us to forget who we are. Instead of being led by God, we allow work to lead us back into bondage. No matter what you busy yourself with, you cannot live God’s best for you if you do not take time to rest. The truth about Creation is that we were never created to produce and perform. Yes, we work. Work was a rhythm of life even before the fall. Work is not bad, but work is not who we are, and should never be the thing that sets the pace of our lives.
On the Sabbath, God gives us permission to step away from work, stop producing, stop performing and just be.
In the “being,” we find peace and acceptance because God declares that we are enough. We reorient our hearts and minds each week to ensure that our identity is rooted in the truth of who God has created us to be, not what our work may tempt us to believe about ourselves. When we rest and allow God to remind us of who we are in Christ, His presence and promise fills and fuels us.
In the “being,” we also abide. We remember, and we delight in our God’s great, unconditional love for us. Creating sacred space to abide in the Lord makes us fruitful (John 15:4). Since we choose to abide, the Spirit equips us to step back into our work, able and ready to offer more of Jesus in us to others, which is much more fruitful than the versions of ourselves that have been stripped of soaking in His presence!
While there is so much more to unpack, I pray this is only the beginning of a conversation between you and God as you discover the rest He has for you.
