Taking a Sabbath Rest

*Note: I’m reposting this as much for myself as you, dear reader… When I originally wrote this I had just suffered a heart attack and by-pass surgery. At this point, I am dealing with temporary blindness. In either case, learning to rely on God is still the same, and learning to listen to His commands still has value. Enjoy this repost and please leave a comment if you are able.

“If I only had more time!” How many of us have said that? I know I have. Lack of time seems to be the number one barrier to reaching one’s writing goals – or so most people say. What if I said you could actually increase the amount of time you have for writing – or at least make it much more effective? Read on…

We’re talking about ‘balance’ – specifically, finding balance between our writing life and the ‘rest’ of life in today’s time driven world. A few months ago, I would have said things like, “Set SMART goals.” “Make a schedule.” “Just get your butt in the chair and do it!” I’ve always been ‘big’ on all of the above, and I’ve managed to be quite productive despite a busy life of ministry, working, and raising a family. I’ve always maintained that if something is important enough, you’ll find a way to fit it in, no matter how hectic your life.

While all of those bits of advice are still valid, I’ve discovered that none of them is actually the real secret to ‘finding more time’.

God has launched me on a different trajectory these past few months. For those that don’t know, I had an unexpected heart attack in May and subsequent open heart surgery. For the first while I couldn’t do much but pray and listen to scripture and worship music on my phone. I had been longing for more time to work on my writing projects, but now that I HAD the time, I simply didn’t have the energy.

As I began to recover, God gave me a new thirst for His Word. As I got stronger I could have jumped all over that list of writing goals I had on my bulletin board, but instead, God prompted me to keep on soaking in His Word with the promise that He would help me finish them in His time.

IN HIS TIME. 

I believe God has shown me the ‘secret’ to living a balanced life. Actually, it’s no secret at all. It boils down to one thing: Honour God with the BEST of your time and He will honour you by multiplying what’s left. 

It is the same principle we see in regard to tithing. It doesn’t make sense to give one tenth of your income away, especially if things are tight. I’ve heard people say, “I can’t afford to tithe right now.” The truth is, people can’t afford NOT to tithe! When we follow God’s principles, He supernaturally gives us increase. It’s just one of the ways that the laws of the spiritual realm operate.

The same is true of our time. This is where my post might turn into a sermon, so hang on to your seats and and keep reading if you dare!

How much quality time do we really spend with God? REALLY? Five minutes each morning? Ten minutes? Half an hour? If we applied the tithing principle to our time, we should conceivably spend two hours and forty minutes per day studying, praying and worshipping. I suppose one could factor in the times praying in the shower, listening to worship music while doing other chores, or going to mid-week Bible studies, but I suspect we’d still come up short.

Unfortunately, many Christians feed themselves with, “A chapter a day keeps the devil away.” Some are on an even leaner diet of, “A verse a day,” or substitute the solid food of God’s Word with one of those little devotional books. (I’m not knocking the devotional books, but if that’s all you’re getting, it amounts to a starvation diet.)

Our rebuttal might be, “But I go to church every Sunday.” This brings me to another point, even more serious, I believe, than how much time we spend in daily time with God: Very few Christians keep the Sabbath.

Please don’t be offended! (And I’m not talking about keeping a certain day of the week – I will leave that up to individual interpretation.) Instead, we each need to examine our own habits. (I’m examining mine as I write!) God commanded us to keep the Sabbath. Not only is it one of the ten commandments, but it is His first ordinance right at creation. He ‘rested’ on the seventh day, not because He was tired, but as an example to us. It’s that important! Taking an entire day for rest and reflection is a gift for our benefit, not an imposition. It says in Genesis that He ‘blessed and sanctified’ the Sabbath day.

This is hard for us to hear in our modern ‘pressed for time’ world. I don’t have time to take an entire day off – every week, no less! It seems there’s always some chores to be done on a Sunday afternoon; things to prepare for the next week… on and on and on… even down to the ‘work’ of writing. And so I continue to scramble about trying to ‘fit’ everything in and hopefully squeeze some time in for writing along the way.

Except… God has promised to BLESS us if we are obedient. I’m beginning to see that God truly can redeem the time if we honour Him FIRST. If I spend quality time with Him each day as well as an entire day once a week, I actually get more accomplished – and with less stress!  Go figure! It doesn’t make sense logically, but God’s spiritual laws work. Just like tithing doesn’t make sense to our natural mind, neither does keeping the Sabbath or spending more personal devotional time make sense in our super-charged-gerbil-on-a-wheel world.

Sermon over. Now for the challenge. 

1. For the rest of this month, spend double the time you normally spend in prayer and Bible study each day. If you spend five minutes, make it ten. If you spend half an hour, make it one hour.

2. Purpose to set aside one entire day as a Sabbath each week for the rest of this month. If Sunday works for you, great. If you want to try the Jewish custom of Friday at 6pm until Saturday at 6pm, that’s cool too. You don’t have to read your Bible and pray the whole time, although doing that is good, but God made the Sabbath for our enjoyment. Prepare a special meal and eat together as a family or invite friends over. Play games, go for a hike, do something fun with people you love. Fellowship. Socialize. Just don’t do any WORK.

3. Keep track of how much more productive you are with the rest of your time. Write it in a journal or just in your head, but I can almost guarantee that you will get more done with the time you have left. Of course, Satan will try to thwart your success, but ignore him and you will be fine!

4. (Optional) Report on your success! I would love to hear about your experiences if you choose to take up this challenge. Comment here, or email me privately: [email protected]

In today’s fast paced world I think one of our biggest struggles is lack of time. The enemy has tried to rob us of time with God by making us ‘too busy’. Take back your right to time with God and you will be surprised at how ‘balanced’ the rest of your life will become.