Invitation to Rest

Last December I snuck away with two of my dearest friends for a rare, overnight get away.  We spent the evening worshipping, celebrating the beautiful anticipation of the Advent season, and simply enjoying each other's presence.  While the time with them was precious, I had no idea that weekend would become transformational for me in ways I could not even begin to imagine.  As we worshipped through music and words that brought fresh wonder to the reality of God made flesh - I felt the tears slip down my cheeks.   I was hurting and exhausted and so desperate for God to heal my wounded heart. 

That November had marked the 3 year anniversary of a devastating trauma in my life.  I had taken some time earlier in the month to reflect on those years and I found myself bogged down with deep disappointment and discouragement.   Three years later the pain was still intensely present.  While it no longer overtook me on a daily basis, it was always there in the background - dulling my ability to fully embrace joy.  I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, unable to live fully into any good moment knowing that the possibility of pain was always around the corner.  And I was angry and frustrated that after three years I was still such a mess.  I had done all the work - counseling, journaling, praying, begging God to bring healing and restoration.  I had processed and confessed, grieved and been compassionate with myself.  I had worked hard at forgiveness and taken responsibility where I needed to.  Why was I still so broken?   

As I sat in that concert I felt God's intimate, quiet invitation to Sabbath - Rest that had the power to restore and mend my shredded soul.   I had done all the work I could do on my own and it was time to allow Him to do what I could not.  I felt the invitation to truly heal.   I did not fully know what it meant in that moment, but I have spent the last year saying yes to that invitation - yes to rest, to redemption and restoration, yes to delight and joy, yes to wholeness and trust, yes to the goodness in this moment despite the pain of the past and the inevitable hard that will come.  This one yes has produced one of the most incredibly transformative years of my life!

In recent months I have been overjoyed to see the growing awareness of our desperate need for rhythm and Sabbath.  Maybe it is simply that this is where I have been camped out with the Lord, but everywhere I look I see books and blog posts, hear sermons and podcasts that are inviting us into the practice of this most holy gift.    I believe that God is calling us back to one of the greatest lacks in the modern church.  It is no secret that our greatest deficit is rest.  We are over-worked, over-stimulated, over-indulged, over-committed.   We are running toward who knows what and we have no idea how to get out of the rat race.   

This deficiency is costing us more than we could imagine.  Without the rhythms of rest, solitude, silence, and recreation in our lives we are operating from a dangerous scarcity rather than the abundant sufficiency God offers. We are sick physically, mentally, and spiritually.  We lack the deep spiritual wisdom that comes only from spending significant amounts of time simply waiting in God's presence, and we are not sure why the promises of peace, joy and abundant life continually remain just beyond our grasp despite our frantic efforts to chase after them.  

This last year for me has been an incredible adventure in exploring the gift of Sabbath.   While I have only scratched the surface,  I would not be exaggerating to say that apart from my initial commitment to follow Jesus in my early 20s, this has been the most profound and life-changing transformation I have experienced.

So what does this look like for me in practice?  While my exploration has included extended days of silence, solitude and retreat, the most foundational change we have made in our family is both incredibly basic from a Biblical perspective and extraordinarily difficult from a logistical one - a 24 hour period of time set aside to practice Sabbath.  For us this begins at sundown on Saturday night and continues through sundown on Sunday evening.  We have defined this time by four principles outlined in much greater detail in the book Sabbath by Wayne Muller and by Pete Scazerro in his book The Emotionally Healthy Leader  - both works I cannot recommend highly enough.   The four guidelines are as follows:

     Stopping Work - In short, setting aside any activity which is, at its core, motivated by a need to be productive.   In stopping work, we choose to trust that the world will not stop spinning if we cease to be productive - that we are really not that important.

   

     "Sabbath disolves the artificial urgency of our days because it liberates us from the 

     need to be finished.   Stop now.  As the sun touches the horizon, take the hand off the

      plow, put down the phone, let the pen rest on the paper, turn off the computer, leave 

     the mop in the bucket and the car in the drive.  There is no room for negotiation, no 

     time to be seduced by the urgency of our responsibilities.  We stop because there are 

     forces larger than we that take care of the universe, and while our efforts are important, 

     necessary and useful, they are not (nor are we) indespensable.  The galaxy will some-

     how manage without us for this hour, this day, and so we are invited - nay commanded

     to relax and enjoy our relative unimportance, our humble place at the table in a very

     large world.  The deep wisdom embedded in creation will take care of things for a while.

   

                                       Wayne Muller, Sabbath

     Resting - And no - resting is not the same as stopping work.   Stopping work is an act of trust that God will provide all that we need to accomplish what He has called us to if we will just embrace our finite ability which gives way to His infinite sufficiency.    Rest is a beautiful invitation to experience the fruit of that trust.  Stopping enables room for rest, but entering into the true extravagance of rest is another thing altogether.    The delious sensation of drifting off to an afternoon nap with no alarm to wake you beyond your body's natural rhythms, the luxurious extravagance of a long bath, an afternoon of games while the dishes sit in the sink, smoothing a hand over the crisp page as you settle into a new novel, sitting on the porch to watch the unmatchable artistry of a sunset from start to finish - these are some of the gifts of rest.  

     Finding Delight - This has become one of my favorite and most indulgently joyful ways to practice and celebrate Sabbath.  What constitutes for me activities appropriate for a Sabbath day?  Anything that brings delight and nothing that does not!  

     "After finishing his work in creation, God pronounced it 'very good'.  (Genesis 1:31) 

     This was not an anemic afterthought - Oh, well, it's nice to be done with that - but a 

     joyful recognition and celebration of accomplishment.  As part of observing Sabbath, 

     God invites us to join in the celebration, to enjoy and delight in His creation and all

     the gifts he offers us in it.  These innumerable gifts come to us in many forms including

     people, places, and things."

                              Peter Scazerro, The Emotionally Healthy Leader

The answer to the question, "What brings me joy and delight?" will differ for everyone.  For my husband this often means puttering in the barn or mowing - but without pressure from me to accomplish something on the to-do list.   This is truly delightful for him.   For both of us it involves being out in nature, taking walks, tossing a frisbee with the kids, or even watching America's Funniest Videos and howling with laughter together as a family.  (We do try to limit screen time, but for this we make an exception.)

     Contemplating God -   For our family this starts with worship with the Body of believers we have committed to do life with, worshipping with our hearts and voices through music, our minds and intellect as we take in teaching on His word and our souls as we fellowship in community with others who are journeying alongside of us.   Interestingly for me, this does not incorporate the discipline of reading Scripture.   I spend time daily reading, meditating on, and memorizing the Word.  On Sabbath, I allow the fruits of this discipline to flow more organically as I simply allow my mind to slow down enough to express gratitude and wonder at creation and the way God's character is manifest through nature and the gift of relationship.  This is a simple and intentional awareness of His goodness in all things. 

There is SO MUCH MORE I could write.  I could write pages about how Sabbath requires sacrifice, and preparation. . .disciplines of their own.   I could write about all the beautiful fruit in my soul, in my marriage, in my family, that has come as a result.  More than anything, the practice of Sabbath in my life has created the environment necessary for the healing I was so desperate for.   I have shared with several friends over the last months that somewhere along the way the frantic quality which often characterized my life, my mind, and my emotions, has begun to melt away.  In its place there is growing a profound peace - a soul deep sense of well-being that is so sweet I cannot quite find words to describe it.  Perhaps it is called Shalom.   In moments, it slips away and I can feel the unrest creeping back in. . . the reminder that the choice to accept the invitation to Sabbath has to be made over and over.  Still, it is always there, the quiet call to let go of all that encumbers us and find rest for our weary souls.