Rest - Part 2

This is the second half of my reflections on Sabbath after reading Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity. Please read part 1 if you haven't already.

Its about twenty years too early to call my experience of reading this book life changing, but the seeds of life change are certainly being sown into my heart. The thought that God created and commands not only work but also rest is somehow revolutionary to me. The realization that Rest - which seems to us an optional luxury - was important enough to God and to the community he created to list among the Ten Commandments requires an entire shift in my thinking.

At first this shift merely creates more clutter in my mind and to-do lists. How am I going to pull this off? What should I do? What should I prepare?

It has immediately become apparent to me that if I am to incorporate a rhythm of Sabbath into my week, all of my life rhythms will and must shift. The change will not occur only on Sundays (or Saturdays) but will spill over into my entire life. And surely this is part of the essential point? Already the clutter in my life is parting into two distinct camps - work and rest. Where once there was endless to-do lists and anxiety, half-hearted work instead of hard work and wasting time instead of rest, I feel convicted to either work hard, or rest entirely. And now, both feel worshipful and meaningful where neither did before. This will alter my priorities, my schedules, and my soul.

I am insistent on doing this one step at a time, in a way that declutters not clutters my mind and life. I have no idea where this road will take me. I am only at the starting gate, but I am on the path. The first tangible action that I feel convicted to follow is not even directly related to Sabbath, but to my entire life - to walk with my feet feeling the ground.

Do you know what I mean by this? As I walk to the bedroom for a clean diaper, or into the kitchen to prepare a meal, or to my car to go to work, or across the room to sit down with a book I feel the soft carpet, the cool tile, the hard steps beneath my feet. This requires me to stay in the moment, to focus on the task that God has given me in this moment, it allows me to fully work or fully rest without my mind going a million places at once.

This in turn requires me to slow my breathing, to relax even as I move through my day. The first day I did this I felt the blood flooding into my fingers and toes. Have I been living too tense to breathe deeply enough to give my body the oxygen it needs? This awareness of my body convicts me about bedtimes as well - I have a baby waking me at night, and suddenly it seems like my God-given responsibility to go to bed early enough that I have a chance of waking rested.

You can see the slippery slope towards Sabbath that I am already on. While I am still mulling over ways to make Sabbath a holy day of rest, my life is being changed. I am trying to remember to work or rest fully, to walk with my feet feeling the ground, to breathe deeply, and to care for my body so as to work and rest fully once again.

These tiny baby steps are challenging enough for a beginner, but with each step that I take I feel my priorities shifting, my soul quieting, my mind realizing what baby steps might be required next.

So I am walking towards a life of Sabbath, with my feet touching the ground at each step. I'm excited to see where I end up and how I change and learn along the way. Who's coming with me?

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. - Exodus 20: 8-11