sabbath

Relax and Rest!

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Rest doesn’t always come easily for driven people. Many pastors and church leaders are passionate about what they do. They are busy, sometimes with expectations put on them, but often because they see another thing that could be done to help move things forward. There is another person to visit, another meeting to prepare, or a new program to plan for. And Sunday is always coming. Every weekend needs another sermon, and service, and lesson prepared. Rest doesn’t always make it onto the “to do” list.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Genesis 2: 2-3 (NIV)

We see four things God did as He concluded his creation. He finished, rested, blessed, and made holy the seventh day. God quit working. There was a certain point where God said, “That’s enough,” and he stopped working. Not only did he stop working, but he also rested. He took a break. He paused from the work and enjoyed a rest. And then he made the seventh day special by blessing it, and he “made it holy.” He set aside from all other days as a special day.

The people of Israel were told to celebrate the Sabbath every week. There were strict warnings from God to the Jewish people to keep this day as a day to stop working and rest and delight in Him and His creation.

Most Christians do not keep the Sabbath in the way that the Old Testament taught, and I don’t believe we need to; yet finding time to stop working and to rest and delight in God is still honoring to God and a huge benefit to all believers. For many, especially pastors, Sunday is not a Sabbath rest. This past Sunday was a good example. My wife and I left home in the morning at 8:30 am and did not return until 9:30 pm. We had a full Sunday. I had to set up and teach Sunday School. I then led a special Prayer Service. This was followed by visits to three different homes: lunch with one family, tea with another, and supper with a third. In that time, we debriefed the morning with an elder, anointed and prayed for a sick church member, and enjoyed playing games with some other friends. While not a Sabbath rest, as such, this was a great way to spend a Sunday, enjoying God and people.

Spending time with our church family, learning and worshipping together is part of Sabbath. Praying for people and anointing them with oil can be part of Sabbath. What many church leaders and pastors miss out on is the Sabbath rest aspect. For some, this works on a Sunday. For others, we need to set time aside at another time. My wife already asked me which day I was going to take off this week, but a Sabbath is more than just a day off. A meaningful Sabbath is a time to follow the example of God: to stop working, to rest, to delight in the day and in His Creation, and to contemplate the holiness of God. It may include feasting and church and family and friends.  It may include prayer and scripture reading. If you finish the day rested, with your joy refreshed, and feeling God’s pleasure, then you have “sabbathed” well.

I would encourage you to take time in your week to, not just take a day off, but to enjoy God and his creation and rest your body, mind, and soul.

Take time to relax and rest in the presence of God.

Keep looking up,

Andy Wiebe

Summer Road Signs Series – #2: Stop Signs

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We began the Summer Road Signs Series with speed signs. Now we’ll go to the opposite: stop signs. While moving forward and heading toward new adventures and new goals is exciting, there are times when we must stop. Eventually we have to take our foot off the gas, apply the brakes, and stop.

Stop signs remind us of a few things. Sometimes we need to stop because we are coming to an intersection, and other traffic may be coming through. If we don’t stop, we may be hit by other traffic. There are times when we need to slow down and stop in life. We have all kinds of distractions and frustrations and even opportunities coming our way all the time.

Sometimes we need to stop to just reset ourselves, to get our bearings. We need to remember to watch out for what is going on around us. Are there dangers we have been ignoring? Are there opportunities we have missed because we have been going forward with such passion and determination, we never recognized them? Slow seasons can give opportunity for us to stop and assess where we have been, where we are, and where we are going.

For ourselves and our families, stopping to spend time reconnecting is valuable. Summer can be busy chauffeuring kids to camp or swimming lessons or tutoring. It can fill up with family gatherings and other expectations. But take time to spend with your family doing very little except being together. Instead of working on another project or chasing another busy thing, slow down and just listen to each other and talk about each other’s dreams and desires, hurts and frustrations. Pause to listen to each other.

In our desire to move ahead, have we left people behind? Do we need to give time for our team to catch up with us? As pastors, we set vision and direction for our churches. Are we giving time for our teams and churches to capture that vision and move with us? As leaders, our jobs include thinking about our goals and our vision all the time, but the reality is that those lead have other things on their minds too. They are not necessarily prioritizing moving towards these goals at the pace we are. A stop sign may remind us to give time for those we lead to catch up.

A stop sign could be at a T-intersection where we need to choose right or left. In our desire to move ahead, there are times we need to stop to figure out our next direction. What’s next? Just blindly choosing a direction in order to keep going may take us in the opposite direction of where we should be heading. Even if you are confronted with two equally good options, the stop will give space to allow you decide which one to take.

A stop sign may also be a reminder to just pause. We all need, in biblical terms, an occasional sabbatical. When God created the world, the seventh day, the final day, was a day of rest. It was a time to recognize that the work that had been done was enough. It’s okay to stop. To rest from busyness and take a break. A sabbatical is a reminder that our worth is not found in what we produce or what we do. When the work stops, you are still loved by God and valued as a person, a child of His.

There is also value in having other “sabbath” times. Taking a vacation can be a sabbath as we stop doing and pursing and producing and enjoy the people around us and take pleasure in the world God has created.

Yes, it is fun to move ahead at full speed, but it is important to recognize the stop signs and take the important breaks that refresh and reorient us for the next part of our journey.

Enjoy the stops signs!

Keep looking up,

Andy Wiebe

P.S. Next week’s road signs: Watch for Wild Animals