Created to be human

I've found myself recently feeling frustrated and overwhelmed, struggling to remember who I am, what I enjoy, what I'm good at. And God in his grace has brought me back to remember the lessons he taught us through our Sabbath year of rest. I’ve noticed that I haven’t actually blogged since finishing our Sabbath year, apart from when I was on maternity leave. That in itself has spoken to me about the need for rest! We are not free to create, to write, to think when we are not rested enough.

Since finishing the Sabbath year God has led us into a season of growth and productivity, branching out and enlarging our tent pegs. Sometimes we look back longingly to those days of inspiring rest! Our natural inclination is to work hard until we burn out, then stop because we can’t go on any further. I’ve become convinced that God starts us off with rest, and we move forward from there. His way round is much healthier.  As life gets busier and things crop up in the diary it is tempting to skip an occasional day off here and there, but I feel convinced that this calling to Sabbath for us was not just for a year, but is a foundational principle on which the health of our life and ministry rests.

Weekly Sabbath reminds me that it’s God that keeps the world turning around, not me; that though others may be aware, I too easily forget that I am fallible and prone to weakness and limitation.  It reminds me that fruitfulness comes only from intimacy, abiding in the True Vine, and that apart from him I can achieve nothing.  I don’t want a ministry that is all my own sweat and hard graft, and none of his grace.  It’s him who does the magic – anything worth having – I just show up in obedient faith, ready to pursue the amazing adventure he’s got planned.

When we were on our Sabbath year, God gave us the story of the children of Israel escaping slavery in Egypt, journeying through the wilderness into the Promised Land, as an allegory for the spiritual journey he wanted to take us on. Sabbath-keeping is one of the things that sets apart the Israelites apart from the nations around them.  It is one of the ways that God sets us free on the inside from the tyranny of the same workaholism that enslaved the Israelites, and with which our culture is all too familiar.  Sabbath gives us the opportunity to get off the hamster wheel, get out of the rat race, and remember how to be human, to create, to love, to play.

In practice what does this look like for me?

We now commit to one particular set day off per week, that others know is our day off, and respect. When we really can’t avoid working on that day we always rearrange.

We encourage all our corps folk and team members to keep a regular consistent day off, and we

take seriously our job of exampling rest as a spiritual discipline to our people. A day off is priority.

I’ve learnt not to be arrogant enough anymore to think I can manage without one. It mars my Christian witness, and it’s not fair on my family or my appointment to offer them the worn out, grumpy, uncreative, compassion fatigued version of myself that Sabbath-skipping delivers.

Inspired by the Jewish idea of ‘a day’ referring to sundown to sundown, rather than our own sunrise to sunrise I try to start my day off the evening before. It really helps to start switching off and get a good night. This also means that if we have last minute bits of Sunday prep to do on Saturday night that it doesn’t actually creep into the day off if we take that on a Saturday.

I aim for my day off to be screen free and consumerism free. This is about soul restoration, and shopping or scrolling on my phone might feel like a rest, especially when I’m too tired and run down to bother with anything else, but it doesn’t renew me in the ways I really need. I make a conscious effort to get out of the house, preferably out of the town/community and to get some fresh air and exercise. It’s about allowing God to renew my mind and my heart from the onslaught of the world and it’s advertising.

There’s so much I want to share with you about what we’ve been doing, the ways God has been leading us, the relationships we’ve been building, the exciting fruit that is growing as we invest in Buckingham, and seek God for his kingdom to grow there, but I’ll save that for another day.

I suppose I grew up with an attitude towards Sabbath that it was one of those Old Testament laws we don’t really need to keep anymore, and that a day off is nice, probably helpful, but it bows down to the good old Protestant work ethic that keeps on going and going and going. As we get busier with two appointments and two children, I frequently feel overwhelmed and like the only way to survive is to fight harder to push through, to keep going.

I feel the temptation creeping back in to led Sabbath slide, but I no longer think of Sabbath as an optional extra. I see in it vital rhythms of God’s restoring grace, that he has designed us to need Sabbath to keep us fully functioning, it’s one part of the instruction manual that’s not worth ignoring. I’m clinging on tight to the lessons God taught us in our Sabbath year.

I’m heading out, Xander and I have a date night tonight, with no plans yet, leave us suggestions in the comments!

Edit: we saw Pirates of the Caribbean number 17 (or whichever number of sequels this one is) at the cinema and I scored bogof muffins at Starbucks and it was wonderful.