Get Some Rest: How Limits Bring a Spacious LifeSample

A Day of Rest Re-Stories Us

A weekly sabbath where we rest from work seems foreign to many Christians. But it is a practice that reorients our bodies, minds, and hearts toward the story of God, instead of a story of hustle and hurry.

Sabbath begins in rest. The Jewish people practice Shabbat sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. It begins and ends in the dark, where rest (not hustle) is the first word.

Rest restores us. Not just a pause, it actually re-stories us: putting us back into the story of God with all of our human limits. We can create habits towards the conditions for rest, but it is ultimately a gift given by a good God.

When we choose to put our phones down one day a week, when we give ourselves to worship, and when we practice delighting in God, we find our spirits renewed.

Sabbath is a day full of reorienting our bodies, minds, and souls into our proper place—rejoicing in our creatureliness. We need rest, good food and drink, and a slower pace to worship our Maker. This was the work we were made to do—for all of life (from the mundane to the monumental) to be given back in worship, to accept the grace of rest as good, and to walk in step with the Spirit of God.

Practice a few new habits of faith on a Sunday. Maybe after worship your phone stays plugged in. Maybe you watch a special show with your family or, like us, choose to eat dessert first so you can “taste and see that the LORD is good” (Psalm 34:8). Maybe you immerse yourself in nature or eat leftovers that you’ve prepared ahead of time so you can focus on receiving the goodness of God rather than working.

It is only as we practice the habits of faith that we will find ourselves not simply understanding facts about Jesus but known by him. It is only as we do the small, repeated household tasks of the family of God that we will be able to access the spacious life even when life’s circumstances are cramped and unknown.

Adapted from A Spacious Life: Trading Hustle and Hurry for the Goodness of Limits. Copyright ©2021 by Ashley Hales. Used by permission. For more information, please visit https://www.ivpress.com/a-spacious-life .