Stop. Rest.

"Then he said to them, 'The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."' Mark 2:27.

Lately, I’ve been working hard to understand rest. (See what I did there?)

But the more I dig into this space, the more I begin to understand that work and rest aren’t really the two opposites I’d previously thought them to be. Instead, I’ve discovered that they’re actually symbiotic (as God in His infinite wisdom created them to be).

I can credit this epiphany to a conversation with Kara Martin, Australian career mentor and author of Workship.

I’d always thought that the creation story qualified our call to rest. You know, "on the seventh day, He rested" (Genesis 2:2)? But here’s what Kara has taught me: He is God. And He created mankind on the sixth day. Which means that before mankind did anything else, our very first act was to rest . . . with God.

And that brings us to the sabbath.

I’ve never been good at resting. At least not as (I’ve come to believe) God intends us to rest. But my husband, Dave, and I have begun carving out time in our weekly schedule to stop. To sabbath. To rest with God. And with this simple act, something has begun to shift.

I no longer view rest as a time to recover from work. Instead, I’m beginning to understand that it’s out of intentional and God-gifted rest all of my life should flow. So, at sundown on Friday each week, Dave and I deposit our phones in a draw, we switch off our television and other digital distractions, we put our wallets away and our regular life comes to a stop.

For a whole 24-hours, we choose to rest and enjoy this wonderful gift that Jesus says is made for us (Mark 2:27). And in so doing, we create space to notice and enjoy the other gifts God has given us, too – time spent together, time spent with others, and time spent exploring His miraculous creation. It’s a precious time of worship and communion with God.

The Pharisees in this passage of Mark have clearly missed the point of the sabbath. But John Mark Comer in his excellent book, The ruthless elimination of hurry, wonders whether we might have too.

For years, my spirit has been yearning after a quieter life – a home among the gum trees, a sheep or two, a kangaroo, the whole kit and caboodle! But maybe my spirit is yearning after something else. Maybe it’s tired of this constantly connected world that I live in. Maybe it’s actually crying out for God-breathed rest.

The kind of rest that God designed for us in the first place.

Dig Deeper

1. The Pharisees approached the sabbath with legalistic zeal. They were missing the point, but so are we. What do you think we need to learn when it comes to sabbath rest? Tell me in the comments below.

2. Stop. Carve out time in your busy week to experience God-gifted rest. It’s something that can be experienced together as a family – so switch off your devices and plug into Him instead! (It's a journey. You'll have seasons where you're better at protecting your sabbath time and some where you'll slip... but, hot tip: I find any time resting in Him is better than none! If the time commitment of a whole day makes you want to run screaming, start by intentionally setting aside an or two in your week for this practice... it won't be long before you're carving out more!)

3. If you want to learn more about this foreign concept of 'rest', you might like to start where I did. Check out The ruthless elimination of hurry by John Mark Comer.

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