Seven Types of Sabbath for Our Modern Culture!Sample

Stewarding Physical Rest  

We were made for actual physical rest. We were made to sleep for eight hours a night. That is a lot of sleep. God could have made us need 30 minutes of sleep to feel revived, but He didn't. Everything in our life is a picture of a reality in the spirit, pointing us to something beyond ourselves. The fact that we need to sleep that many hours a night to function well should tell us something, God values rest! Our whole body is resetting while we sleep. Have you ever had to wake up in the middle of the night to catch a flight somewhere and your stomach hurts? That is because you woke up in the middle of repair mode for your body.

Much like our body needs actual rest to repair, so do we as people. When we push too hard or overlook our needs, we can start to malfunction and burnout. Being self-aware of what we need can be such an overlooked essential to thriving in life. I have seen it too many times that people simply don’t know how to give themselves permission to have needs or ask for help, and they end up hurting themselves and other people because of it.

You see when we deny that we have needs then we become self-sufficient, and we were never made to be that way. When we don’t acknowledge our needs, we actually deny Christ His rightful place in our lives. It’s like if you were drowning and you told God that you didn’t need Him, that you can do it yourself. The sad truth is that all that is. It is pride disguised behind self-sufficiency. Ouch! We were never made to be sufficient in and of ourselves. We like to think we are superhuman, but God is much more okay with our weaknesses and frailties than we are. He said that His strength is made perfect in our weakness, not when we get rid of them. 

How do you think you are doing with being aware of your needs? Are you okay with being dependent upon God, or do you struggle with feeling like you need to be overly capable on your own?

Prayer: 

God, thank You that You created me to work from rest and not for it. Help me to remember that choosing rest is powerful and sets me up for success to thrive in life. Thank you that You created us to function in a beautiful order that brings You glory and brings us great joy! I celebrate the way that You made me! 

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