Ever since I was a boy, I heard about the 10 Commandments. Most of them made sense but one still messes with me until this very day. Here are five reasons I still struggle with Sabbath:
- I still believe in the illusion that I don’t need to stop.
As a type “A” personality, I have to face it: Going is better than stopping. Doing more seems more doable than doing less. Pausing, stopping, ceasing and resting are not in my mother tongue’s vocabulary. I speak “Let’s get ‘ur done!” Since working hard was modeled for me as a boy by the men in my life, I absorbed an ethos that I now see, decades later, has wreaked havoc in my soul and done violence to my life by choosing to always to more—not less—at least one day a week.
- I sometimes do not believe in the sovereignty of God.
When you stop for one day a week, we are given the opportunity to lean into the sovereignty of God. I take my hands off the plow, off the keyboard; off the gear-shift of my high octane life and let go of trying to control my life. Sabbath gives us one day a week to take the hands off of the control shift of our life and to surrender to the spiritual act of letting go. I have to face the fact that in my core, I want control more than I want to let go. To practice letting go—for one day a week—is perhaps an ultimate sign that you really do trust God more than you trust yourself.
- I don’t really believe in my well-being. I believe in my well doing more!
Doing more always costs us. Always being “on” and always being “available” costs a person their well-being. When we are in our 20’s and 30’s we push and strive. We achieve and perform. In our 40’s we begin to question this credo—yet secretly because we don’t want to be labeled “normal” or average. If we do more, then perhaps we believe, we can finally arrive. But well-being is state of being that requires a day a week to cease; to enjoy—to delight in something other than work and performance.
- It’s easier to work than to rest.
Keeping a day as a Sabbath is one of the 10 Commandments. God knew from the beginning that we would work, strive and live by the sweat of our brow. So when we practice Sabbath—we are practicing one of the oldest spiritual practices ever given and known to humanity. Just as we are told not to kill, steal and cheat on our spouses, we are told to rest one day a week. To choose to practice Sabbath is to intentionally chose to resist our culture. [tweetthis]Sabbath keeping, for me, is counter cultural as well as counter-intuitive.[/tweetthis] Sabbath keeping does not make sense to so many of us. As we lean into this ancient practice, we soon realize that God’s ways are truly not our ways. We would never cease; never stop; never Sabbath and that is our undoing. It has been my undoing in my life, my fathering and my being a husband. When I practice Sabbath, I am reminding myself “I do not want to be undone any more. “ Sabbath helps me really live.
- Money seems more powerful than trust.
At the root of Sabbath is the power of mammon—money. God’s intent in helping us rest is to help us put money in perspective. Money is not really everything. Money does not define us when we are burned out and used up. The rival God of the 21st century is money and Sabbath keeping deflates the over-inflated ego of the dollar—no matter what currency you use. When we Sabbath—note I uses this as a verb and not a noun—we live with bigger goals in mind and heart. Money intoxicates the soul. Sabbath puts everything into perspective. When we Sabbath, we live smaller lives and being small, one day a week is a very good thing for the soul. For more help on Sabbath and living a rhythm of life that sustains you, and doesn't drain you, please get and read Chapter 5 of Inside Job: "Exposing the Lie of Being Balanced." Order the book here and get started! Order Inside Job and the accompanying workbook here!
Living in rhythm—and the commitment to live life in a sustainable rhythm will help you avoid burnout, experience despair, and running your life on empty.In choosing to live in rhythm you are accepting a different cadence in life than the one which says: Get! Achieve! Acquire! Do! That kind of rhythm over the long haul leads to the front doors of burnout and failure. By developing a more life-giving rhythm, you will need to explore a few foundational realities:
Lesson #2.Have you ever noticed on new construction that the first thing builders build is the necessary scaffolding. The scaffolding is necessary. It's the beams, planks and poles that are erected both around and inside the new construction. There, the workers ascend the planks and build the building.Rhythm is the necessary scaffolding we need to build a sense of abundance into our lives. Without a sense of rhythm--every day is the same. The days turn into weeks and the weeks morph into years. But when we build the scaffolding of rhythm into our lives, we have the necessary structure to build our lives--to "work out our own salvation" as Paul says and to live not in drudgery but with meaning, satisfaction and a sense of abundance.In our time we called the Great Experiment, we purposed to live a life of rhythm. We had been doing too much. We had violated our own souls but accepting too many invitations and to try to say 'yes' to many times instead of saying 'no.' In our new rhythm, we worked hard but then took the time to come back to life. We gave our hearts away but then took the necessary time to de-tox; to rest, to reflect; to enjoy; to have fun and then we worked again.The scaffolding we began to build was to embrace a rhythm of engage--then disengage. Do our work. Pour our heart out. But then come back for a time of renewal, refreshment, rest and reflection. Without these four "R's: renewal, refreshment, rest and reflection we would only be on the treadmill of doing more; burning the candle at both ends and entering a sense of hamster wheel living.By imposing a scaffolding of rhythm, we are having the time to evaluate the trajectory of our lives; make small adjustments and live with hope and a renewed sense of calling which is deep and life-giving. It feels like blessing, not drudgery. It feels like life, not death. It feels like glimmers of abundance not endurance.In my book, The Jesus Life, I am hearing from people all over the world who are fascinated with what I unpack there in two chapters about rhymthm. Here, though, I want to go further. Say a bit more and share more personal insights and reflections.Using the scaffolding metaphor, envision how you want each day to look, each week, each month, each quarter and each year. What do you want to do each week that is life giving. What can you implement that is life giving every single month; every quarter.What kind of scaffolding do you envision for a sustainable rhythm?How many hours a week are you working currently and how much time would you like to disengage each week?What would disengagement look like?What does rhythm look like from where you are RIGHT NOW?
We're back now from our "experiment" to spend some time on the east coast. While there, we based out of Holden Beach and traveled with our ministry speaking to churches, organizations and leading retreats. We had some much needed time off and it was in the time off that insights, epiphanies and dare I say, revelations came to us. I want to share with you some of these insights because I feel they will be valuable for you as you read The Jesus Life and focus on establishing a healthy rhythm for your own life.Lesson #1:Coming down takes time.Just as it takes time for us to get wound up; to speed up to 5th gear living; to run our lives on empty--it also takes time to wind down--to "come down" where we ought to be, as the Quakers say in their beautiful song, "Tis, a Gift to Be Simple." No one shifts into 5th gear in an instant. You rev the engine up and just the opposite is true. To slow down, it takes time. There's no substitute for it. It takes time to come down where we ought to be. Only time ministers to the soul in a way that nothing else can ever do. To scoot pass this invaluable lesson is to by-pass the secret of entering the rest we need.We rush and cram in our vacations and think we are taking "time off" but sometimes--perhaps even often, taking the time off makes us feel guilty, shameful and it's actually hard for many of us to take time off. Let's face it--do you even know how to take a vacation that your body longs for and your soul is thirsty for right now? Would you cram into too much fun; too much adventure and return even more exhausted? Many of us do this. I'm convinced that many parents today are setting their children up for disaster because the parents themselves can't really learn to live in a rhythm of grace. We do. We do too much. We do too much in our one week away.During our experiment, Gwen and I sat at the ocean for two weeks and and during the first week, our heads were still spinning at the speed of life we were moving in--which was too fast. Sitting on the beach; watching the waves and being quiet helped us de-tox from the speed of our lives. But what's important is this: it took us 2 weeks to have a decent thought about this. It took time to un-clutter our heads and allow our hearts to resurface. For the first week, we were so deeply bone tired that we couldn't think clear. The second week, we felt ourselves coming back to life. It took a full, whole and other week for us to regain the vital connection we had lost in our hearts and with each other.It is enough to make you re-think a one week vacation...or even taking one or two days off. What good will they really do if you don't invest enough time to enter the true rest you really need.It takes time to shed the socks and shoes of worry and scurry. It takes time. And if you don't take the time, you'll still be wearing the smelly socks of preoccupation, day dreaming, feeling quilty, living in the shame of taking time off altogether!As you plan your vacation here are some things to keep in mind and some questions to ponder: 1. How much time would you like to take off from your work and every day routine? How much do you need? How much can you take? What do you feel when these questions stare at you right now?2. Is it possible to have a buffer day before you go and leave and another buffer day when you return so that you're being nice to yourself and giving yourself some transition time--time to unpack. Time to take it easy rather than rush, rush, rush and hurry, hurry, hurry so you can finally relax.3. What lessons might Americans learn from the European brothers and sisters who take an entire month off? Is that even possible?4. What would it look like for you to be able to shed the socks and shoes of hurry and scurry?
cuse. If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement, or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says, I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange. What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect, when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it—like a secret vice! Actually, there are among the most important times in one’s life—when one is alone. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone.” The Gift of the Sea, p.44The beach invites us to re-think our lives. Such open spaces, unobstructed vistas and the ebb and tide of the waves make it possible to think about the trajectory of one’s life and if one likes the way they are headed. This is happening to me during our pilgrimage at the beach. Today, in reading The Gift of the Sea again, deep feelings surfaced within me.Solitude is something I was late in understanding in my life and work. After completing an under-graduate degree, three year graduate degree and work on my doctorate--I now realize that no teacher, preacher, mentor or friend introduced me to solitude until solitude came and found me in my broken estate. Perhaps no one might really embrace solitude until they have to or might die. There, I realized that people could not energize my heart nor give water to my soul—only solitude could. What work could a preventative lesson in solitude offer leaders? This is what fuels my soul now to keep going at my work in Potter's Inn.Now I wonder why in all of my attempts to learn the things of God, to read the books about God and to listen to a thousand speakers talk to be for God was I not introduced to the need—no, the necessity of solitude. Some of us are too busy. Some of us live too much in our heads and some of us have stripped all the gears of our soul so that there is no slowing down at all. (In Chapter 3 of The Jesus Life, I show how Jesus lived his life in a rhythm of solitude, then engagement in his work).In all of our efforts to try to help people, one great injustice we are doing is not helping people understand the power of solitude. We have developed great programs to teach English as a second language; programs to dig wells, programs to do most everything except teach people the life giving way of Jesus, himself when he embraced solitude as a normal way to refuel is own soul and renew his heart’s purpose. We love our music and the tiny gadgets that provide the music, but what of the quiet? What of the Great Silence that men and women of old practiced every night—every night throughout their lives? But where has the voice been to speak to us about something as native to the soul as being quiet and knowing God. Even the Psalmist said, “Be still and know that I am God (Ps. 46:10). When then, is the church so quiet on teaching on such a vital subject as solitude?Something so vital, so necessary and so needed should not have to wait until we are broken, piled up in a heaping mess and desperate to stumble upon something so simple as solitude? It’s counter-intuitive isn’t it? That through silence we hear what we cannot hear in any other way.In a compelling chapter that I read this morning from Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s, The Gift of the Sea, (Chapter 3), I feel better equipped to answer the pleas of the woman in Baltimore and the man in Denver who complains, “My life is so full, how then can you expect me to do this—to practice quiet?” I will now say, “It is not another additional thing you need to do in your life. It is THE essential thing we have to do to experience a sense of abundance in our life rather than feeling so empty, so depleted, so tired and worn out and calling that false life—the abundant life.