The gift of the Sabbath has become more and more meaningful to me over the years as it relates to my identity as God’s child for whom He deeply cares. Sabbath offers each of us physical rest from our daily labors, but also emotional recovery and spiritual renewal. Just think, God knows and loves you so well that He gave you a weekly break from the hustle and hurry of life’s multitude of meaningful tasks in graciously providing an entire day each week for your rest, recovery and enjoyment of Him.
God had something extra in mind as He created the gift of Sabbath—a full-stop at the end of the work week of which He would later command, “In it you shall do no work,” (Ex. 20:10). As Seventh-day Adventists the beautiful message of Sabbath is found right in our name: a special gift of grace to share with the busy and stressed-out world around us.
But the Sabbath is more than a day off from our daily jobs and necessary errands; it’s an invitation to rest in the work of God and acknowledge that He can sustain the world without our assistance as we find true rest from our strivings for breadwinning. This once-a-week “letting go and letting God” is an extremely important Sabbath-infused practice that affects every area of our daily life of faith in God—trusting Him to protect and provide while we rest. We must be careful to let go of such self-dependence that shares its roots in perfectionism. The “Messiah complex,” a belief that everything will fall apart without my personal and constant effort, presents a challenge for many to take their hands off the wheel. As a seminary friend once said, “Rest well and keep in mind that God does not have pajamas: ‘He Who watches over Israel, shall neither slumber nor sleep.’ (Psalm 121:4).”
The Sabbath is an invitation to stop doing and start being. I believe that our truest identity as God’s child is most evident when we Sabbath with our “Abba” Father, Whose very name is found in the title of the seventh day: sABBAth. While the temptation remains to draw our identity from our performance and productivity, the Sabbath offers us the challenge to see ourselves through God’s eyes of grace, detached and indifferent from our works.
In fact, our overwork can mask our feelings of inadequacy from others and ourselves by just staying busy. However, like a baby napping on the chest of its father, our value is not tied to any accomplishment or achievement, but simply the wonder and safety of being held in the capable embrace of a loving parent. The Sabbath serves not only as physical rest from work, but as a restorative boundary to our emotional and spiritual well-being as we stop comparing and striving and simply rest in the abiding arms of Jesus’ complete acceptance and love.
The more anxious and busy life gets, the more I am convinced that God designed us to have both daily, short-term rest as well as weekly, long-term recovery routines in our lives. Even the week of Creation is marked with a daily pause of God ending His work and pronouncing it good (see Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, and 31). I think of this as the “pause of Go(o)d,” in which God paused His daily labor, reflected on what He had made, and with a slight sense of completion, “called it good.” The pause of good is a feeling you are familiar with when you step back and take a breath from your daily toil.
Rhythms of grace
For a moment, let’s compare your emotional and spiritual life to that of the physical training of an athlete. Karen VanBaak of UC Sports Medicine and Performance Center advises college and high-performance athletes to include a healthy rhythm of rest and recovery within their training regime. Addressing long-term recovery, VanBaak says, “I think days of doing nothing are really important. I want almost all of the athletes I take care of to take a full rest day every week.” 1 Whether a pause after a workout, or an entire day off from training, these rhythms of work and rest are evident in agriculture, construction, education, manufacturing, sports and transportation.
When we attach our value and importance to how busy we are, taking time to rest can bring on anxiety that we’re letting others down, guilt for caring for ourselves, and even a sense of irrelevance that things may go on without us. We’re familiar with the gospel story of Jesus calling aside His disciples from their labors of ministry. Mark 6:31 could easily describe our hurried and hectic lives here in 2023 as Jesus invites, “‘Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’ For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.”
As I recently heard NAD president Elder G. Alexander Bryant say, “The same Jesus who calls us to service also calls us to rest.” 2 Also addressing the stewardship of our emotional and spiritual energies that make up this important balance between service and rest, Ellen White comment:
“Christ is full of tenderness and compassion for all in His service. He would show His disciples that God does not require sacrifice but mercy. They have been putting their whole souls into labor for the people, and this was exhausting their physical and mental strength. It was their duty to rest. Christ called them to rest that they might spend a few hours with Him. How thoughtful and tender was His love and care for them!” 3
The effort required for healthy engagement with family, people and our vocation can be both exhilarating and exhausting. It only makes sense that in order to put one’s entire soul into heartfelt labor for others, one needs to maintain the mental and physical strength to do so 100 percent. The temptation is to live on half-a-tank all the time, to only have a portion of our tired selves to offer at any given time, but not stopping often enough to restore our weary souls. Mrs. White declares that in order to have this vitality, “It was their duty to rest.”
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to Me. Get away with Me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with Me and work with Me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” (Matt. 11:28-30 MSG).
Still need permission to rest? In a Stanford University study along with The Institute of the Study of Labor, it was discovered that long weekly hours and long daily hours do not necessarily yield high output. And that productivity per hour falls after a person works more than 50 hours a week. After 55 hours, productivity drops so much that it’s almost pointless to keep working. In fact, the study revealed that working 70 hours or 55 would result in pretty much the same level of productiveness. That doesn’t appear to add up, and yet that’s the beauty and mystery of Sabbath. Like returning a tithe of our time to God, He enables us to accomplish more in six days than if we worked all week long.
Yet the real blessings are not just physical, but the increase of the quality of our lives as a result of balancing work and rest. We will find a deeper experience with God through unplugging from being defined by our employment and recharging our souls through quality time with Jesus and those we love.
2 G. Alexander Bryant, NAD Ministries Convention, Keynote address, January 8, 2023
3 Signs of the Times, August 5, 1897, par. 6
Craig Carr is ministerial director for the Mid-America Union Conference.
