Take the Sabbath Rest

As a bit of an excessive worker, I find myself routinely lacking time to rest. There is a long list of chores and work to be accomplished, and this means that there are very few opportunities to take a day off. Sometimes getting a day off still includes several hours of work. If left up to chance, rest ends up becoming a secondary priority.

One hazard of putting off the sabbath day of rest is that it eventually catches up with us. Fatigue catches us, often off guard, when we push ourselves too far. This can lead to a crash, and the crash can cause illness, depression, or unnecessary stress which manifests differently in each individual. Stress can be a killer.

The truth is that the sabbath is vital for our well being because God knew how important it is for us to take time to recover and rest. This is why He commanded that we would honor the sabbath day or rest, and not only did He do that, He set the example for us by modeling the day of rest at the creation. I could spend a lot of time listing scriptural references, but I want to talk about my experience.

First, the sabbath day of rest is not just a day to not work. The intention or the day was to spend time with the Lord. When we take time to set aside all of life's distractions, and stress, and we focus our mind, heart, and soul, on spending time in fellowship with the Creator, we open ourselves up to the refreshing restoration and peace that only God can deliver.

Life happens in seasons, and in some seasons it is easy to carve out the time for intentional fellowship with God. Then there are seasons where unintentionally we start to stray as our schedules and responsibilities begin to detract from our rest. The truth is that in these times we begin to worship all the other things in life other than the Almighty.

I know that sounds a little harsh, but when other things become priorities over the time spent with the Lord, we are essentially worshiping those priorities. Sometimes its not priorities, but other leisure activities, such as staring at our phones. Anything can become an idol when we start focusing more on the idol than God. Much like getting off course, generally we start with a small step in the wrong direction, and after a while we look back and wonder how we got so far off track.

This has happened to me many times. I did not intent to put false idols in the place of the Lord, but slowly I found that some I was allowing distractions to consume my time with Jesus. Some of them I thought were relaxing and a form of rest, but they never really delivered, all they did was draw my eyes away from where they should have been focused the whole time.

In the old testament the word for peace is "shalom", which is also means wholeness. When we come back to God for rest, we not only receive refreshment, but we are restored back to wholeness and can rest at peace in the presence of our Father in heaven. There is no other place on the planet where we can receive such a blessing.

Over the last few years, I found that an entire day is difficult, but if we are intentional we can find the time to share in His presence. We have to make an intentional choice to return to Him. Regardless of the day of the week, or the number of hours, we honor the sabbath by putting Him first and making time with God the priority.

How are you spending time with God and finding rest in this busy world we live in?