Imagine you are an Israelite and you have been delivered from slavery in Egypt by the God of your ancestors. You have lived in slavery your entire life, just as your family did before you. Maybe you have never had a day off, maybe you have never had rest for celebrations or holidays. You have perhaps been conditioned to serve and work only. It might even make up a large part of your identity. Slavery is all you know.
Now, your God has given you ten words to live by, and one of those words is to rest. Not just you, He is commanding all parts of your society, from the highest to the lowest, even the animals, to rest one day a week.
I think this must have been radical to the ears of God’s people, maybe even unimaginable.
You must rest.
God modeled rest at creation. He did not ask that His people rest when they wanted to or when they could make time for it. He told them they must rest in order to align their weekly rhythms with the rhythms of His Kingdom. He asks the same of us today.
I have never been enslaved, nor would I compare any of my experiences to enslavement, but I too have battled the human condition to engineer out rest. I am in a season of life where rest, especially 24 hours of Sabbath, seems radical. I have been the main caretaker of young children for the past 13 years. Nursing, sleep schedules, diaper changes, school pick-ups, play dates, baseball games, class parties. I also serve and work at the local church. I love everything that fills my plate each day. But rest? When am I supposed to do that? When I rest, something does not get done. When I rest, there is extra work to do the next day. It feels as if I am sitting in the sun getting a sunburn while not knowing how to protect myself.
Establishing the spiritual practice of Sabbath and living inside the rhythm that God has called us to is like applying balm to a sunburn. It begins to heal the damage that a fast-paced, demanding life has caused. Slowly, after practice, Sabbath starts to become sunscreen. It begins to protect us from the same fast-paced, demanding life that surrounds us. I am still in the balm phase of this spiritual practice. But I know God will bring me to the sunscreen phase as I press into this command from Him.
What is one practical step you can take to establishing a Sabbath or even Sabbath moments in your week? Let’s walk faithfully toward the rhythms of God’s Kingdom.