If there’s anything most of us feel burdened by on a normal day, it’s pressure.
Pressure to do well! Be productive! Raise amazing kids! Have an awesome *sparkly clean* home!
Rock it out at work! Serve an organic, homemade, four-course dinner! Get all the laundry washed, dried, folded, AND put away! Be the World’s Most Rockstar Employee!
…and we are trying to do it all in the same day.
We’re all looking for relief from that pressure. You know how I know? Because in any given moment of boredom, and most often when we have plenty of other things to do and feel overwhelmed, we pick up our phones and we scroll.
There, on the handy dandy Internet, we sit lots of people who appear to be doing everything I just listed.
Can I tell you a secret? That scrolling is not helping us. At worst, we compare ourselves to every image coming through our little screens and we feel inferior. At best, we've wasted time. Even in that best case scenario, when we finally put the phone down, we pretty soon realize that all we’ve accomplished is wasting 20 minutes (or 30, or 40, or…) that we couldn’t afford to waste in the first place. I don't know about you, but knowing I've wasted precious minutes adds a side of guilt to my already-full plate.
But I’ve found one thing that has helped relieve this pressure. I’ve tried a lot of things, and this is the one I’ve found that works. It requires change, but it’s worth it. It’s not easy, but change rarely is, especially good change. But if you’ll do it, you’ll find relief from the pressure. You ready?
It’s prioritizing a weekly Sabbath.
Some of you just rolled your eyes. And I get it. You’re thinking something along the lines of, "Sabbath sounds great, but also..."
What does that even mean?
I have little kids so LOL at the thought of rest
How do I do that?
I can't take a Sabbath or my house/family/work/life will fall apart
That sounds like just one more thing to do
Sabbath isn’t just for “someday”...it’s for today. Real rest is available to you, right in the middle of your real life.
I made this tool to help you, but before we go any further, I want you to know some things.
1- Sabbath means rest, and it's different from fasting. Sabbath and fasting are both spiritual disciplines, and they both remind us that God is God, and we are not.
Fasting is giving something up, it is making a sacrifice. One of the best ways I've heard fasting described is that it is giving up something you love for something you love more.
Sabbath, on the other hand, is less about giving something up and more about laying something down. Sabbath, which literally means to rest, is a discipline that communicates to God, to others, and to ourselves that we are not in control and that we trust a good God with our lives.
2- I’m not a Sabbath expert. For that, I would send you to many people who are wiser and better at this than I am, the first being John Mark Comer and his book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.
3- Sabbath is a practice. You will get better at it the more you do it. If one Sabbath goes poorly, you try again next week. You don’t quit. I have heard Jeff Bethke say to think of it like Christmas: if Christmas is bad one year, you don’t cancel it forever; you try again next year. Sabbath is like that, but it comes around every week.
4- I’m a regular woman in my early 30s who works part-time from home while I juggle our 4 year old who moves (and talks) 100 miles per minute, conference calls, working around my husband’s work + grad school schedules, our church commitments like leading small groups, trying to be a good friend, etc.
5- Our family is not some sort of Sabbath exception. This is for you, too. Real rest in your real life is possible.
The steps I’m going to walk you through and the guide I’ve made to help you work through these steps yourself is a starting place.
I will not answer all the “Can I” questions for you: “Can I exercise on the Sabbath? Can I cook on the Sabbath? Can I *insert task here* when I’m having a Sabbath?” If you are a believer, God the Holy Spirit lives inside of you. I trust Him to guide you and believe you can listen and do what He says.
I will tell you that, besides prayer and discernment, the primary filter I use for answering “Can I do *this* on Sabbath?” is asking myself two questions:
1- Is this rest?
2- Is this worship?
If the answer to either or both is yes, then I usually go for it and enjoy it. If the answer to both questions is no, I skip it on my Sabbath.
The Key to Not Quitting Sabbath Before You Start
With Sabbath, I encourage you to start where you are. Yes, it is traditionally a 24 hour period. However, if you currently have no dedicated time of rest in your week, 2 hours is an improvement. If you try to overhaul your whole Sabbath at once, you’re probably going to be even more overwhelmed, get discouraged, and quit.
What we want here is to relieve the pressure, not add to it. So while the goal is to work up to one 24 hour period of rest, start where you are. Here’s how:
1- Choose one thing.
What is your most hated chore? The task you put off until you can’t anymore? The one you’d rather do anything except that? Have something in mind? That’s your one thing. If you don't have something in mind, brainstorm a list of tasks that fit (or get close to) this bill. You can choose from there.
On your Sabbath, you’re not doing it. Nope. On a set day and for a set amount of time (we will get there in a second), you get the day off. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Do not jump ahead to what will happen if you don’t do this for one whole day; we’ll get there. For now, bask in the delight of being free from that task for 24 whole hours every single week.
How I did this: When I was teaching full time, I started implementing Sabbath by doing no school work on Sundays. No grading, no planning, no emails, nada. Once I came home, some things about Sabbath got easier, and some things about Sabbath got harder, and I had to shift.
I picked dishes. I hate dishes. So my first Sabbath “thing” was no dishes on Sunday.
2- Set your day and time.
Sabbath means rest. In Jewish tradition, Sabbath is observed from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, 24 hours reserved for rest and worship. Most Christian traditions observe Sabbath on Sunday.
If you are a pastor, a pastor’s wife, or if you work for a church in any capacity, you may want to choose another day or time, because you’re working (and working hard!) on Sundays. While we think of that as primarily true for most church staff, it can apply to anyone: choose your day and time.
When you’re choosing, think about what will actually work in the life that you have. Look at your calendar, check the day you’d like to have and the days immediately before and after. What works? What will you stick to? What can you start and build on?
How I did this: When we first started Sabbath, 2-3 hours on Sunday afternoon was what I felt I could manage, so that’s what we did. From after lunch until dinner time was time for rest. Now, it is typically from after dinner Saturday until after dinner Sunday.
3- Prepare
This is how you avoid your whole home and schedule falling apart. Prepare. Ask yourself, “To be able to go 24 hours without doing my one thing, what do I need to do in advance?”
Sabbath is a great reminder that the world does not depend on us; we are not God. And. Sabbath is not a free pass to neglect responsibilities that you have. We can hold both the rest we are called to and the responsibility we carry when we plan.
Some examples:
Not checking your email for 24 hours? Great, make sure you have handled everything that will need to be handled in that time period. This may mean working ahead and/or putting up an out of office auto response.
Not doing dishes? Sweet. Make sure you run your dishwasher the night before.
Not doing laundry? Fantastic. You may need to do an extra load on another day of the week to free yourself up for a day.
Not cooking? Sounds great. You’ll want to think ahead on leftovers, make sure you pick up stuff to make sandwiches when you grocery shop, etc.
How I do this: When I first stopped doing dishes on Sunday, we bought a pack of paper plates that we designated "For Sabbath only." It was a simple way to support implementing this type of rest. When I added "no laundry," I added an extra load to another day of the week. When I added "no cooking," I made sure we were stocked with some meals in our freezer, snacks in our pantry, things we could pull together to make a snack plate or charcuterie, ingredients for a recipe that involves dumping 3 things in a crockpot and letting it go, etc.
Sounding good so far but you need to see how this all works out? Get a planning sheet and see a sample of mine here.
4- Communicate
This is particularly important if you live with other people, even more so if you are married, even more so if you have children. Communicate about this Sabbath practice for your family. What will this look like? Is there a way you can arrange to not just lay one task down, but use some of that time to get some quiet?
How I do this: My husband and I often take turns on Sunday afternoons. One of us will take over primary parenting with our daughter for an hour or two, and then we will switch, so the other can have the same amount of time. This can be time that you read, paint, work a puzzle, garden, play a game, nap…whatever sounds restful to you. See if there are people in your life that you could tag-team this with.
5- Reflect and Adjust
This probably is not going to go off without a hitch your very first Sabbath. I hope it does. But if it does not, that’s okay. This is a practice.
Reflect and think about what went well? What can I adjust for next week?
Maybe you need to adjust your start or end time. If it was hard to stick to, start with a smaller window of time. If it went by quickly, add some time and make your window longer. The goal is to work up to a full day, but this can be done slowly and over time.
Ready to add a task? Awesome. Choose the next thing to add to your “no Sabbath” list. Try that for a couple of weeks, then add something else, again, working up to the goal of a full day of rest.
6- Don’t Give Up
Sabbath can be worked into, and it can be worked out of. You’ll be amazed how easy it is to add “just one thing” for “just this one time”...and before you know it, you’ve worked yourself out of so many of your good Sabbath habits.
If that happens, (and it does happen; this is where we are in my house right now, which is why I'm writing this and making this guide), start where you are in that moment, going back to the basics of what you already know.
You can start over. One bad Sabbath, or a stretch of them, doesn’t mean you quit. Don’t give up. It means you try again next week.
So there you have it. This process has worked for me and my family, and I hope it works for you, too.
If you want a more concrete guide, you can get that here.
Remember: Sabbath isn’t just for “someday”...it’s for today. Real rest is available to you, right in the middle of your real life.