Sabbath: An Introduction
Restless. Inability to stay still. Inability to exist in silence for very long without pulling out my phone, scrolling Instagram, reading a book, organizing something, cleaning or just in general… doing something. That is my standard practice. That is how I exist and breathe and move through space. Always doing.
Though I’ve been seriously following Jesus since 2008, practicing a sabbath rest has never been a priority of mine. I’m not sure why I never took it seriously. Perhaps a part of it was that I learned about spiritual life in college and I always needed to do homework on Sundays, so I just kind of figured it wasn’t a big deal, because everyone else also did homework on Sundays.
A few months ago, Scott and I picked up this audiobook to listen to together. It challenged us in more ways than we expected. Books don’t always get me to change life habits, but this one did. From this book and several other life influences, we decided to adopt the practice of a weekly Sabbath. Spiritual practice and discipline reveals inner parts of our lives that we’re not always aware of because our minds are elsewhere. For me, it has revealed my inability to calm down and rest without doing something productive. In the quiet, in the in between moments, in the stress… my mind jumps to what I should be doing, what I can do, what I can accomplish, or how I can improve my life, my space, etc.
There was a joke that my parents made about me even back into high school. When I was upset, angry, or just in a bad place I would bake cookies or clean. If I was in the kitchen, my dad would ask if I was making “angry cookies” or would ask me what was wrong. I’ve been sitting with this concept, realizing that when our weekly sabbath hits and I can’t fill my time with accomplishments I feel a real sense of sadness and worthlessness. It almost feels like on some of those sabbath days that I have a sense of depressive feelings if I can’t put my body to work. Who knew that rest could bring on such complicated feelings? That’s the heart of a spiritual discipline (though I would argue sabbath is more of a command): it puts our bodies in places that allow for the Holy Spirit to transform our lives.
Our Sabbath journey is not over, it’s really just beginning. It’s not perfect and I haven’t even been able to fully let the Holy Spirit speak to my soul about what I’ve learned about myself and invite healing, restoration and beauty and goodness to overwhelm the broken parts of me that only value accomplishments and productivity. However, I share because I want this space to be not a space where I’m writing every time I have something profound to say, but I want to invite you in on the journey. I won’t be using social media on sabbath days, but I will drop some information on my instagram about what we do on sabbath so far, what we wrestle with, and what it takes to get to sabbath rest.
How about you? Do you or your family practice a sabbath? What does it look like in your stage of life - with young kids, no kids, single, married, etc.?