Our family's Keystone Habit to ward off Anxiety, Depression and Burnout
I once spoke a message at Mercy Road Church on Sabbath rest. Kristi and I have been diligently trying to apply the principle of Sabbath rest into our weekly rhythm over this past year. You may know this from previous posts I’ve written that each year we choose a Word for the Year that we want to focus on and embody as a family. In 2019 we chose the word “Foundation." The end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 marked some massive transition for our lives — both in our family and ministry — so we chose to focus that year on establishing a solidly rooted and firmly planted foundation for our family. I believe the principle of the Sabbath — perhaps more than any other principle that governs our household — has accelerated that process for us. Not to mention it has revolutionized our mental, emotional, and even physical health. If you’re not familiar with the concept of the Sabbath and/or you don’t practice a weekly Sabbath, I would highly recommend you familiarizing yourself with the concept of Sabbath Rest and implementing it into your life and weekly rhythms. Below are a couple links to resources that may help you get started:
Message I spoke at Mercy Road on November 24th on the topic of Sabbath Rest
eBook I wrote called Thriving in Trial - Pillar Seven is about Sabbath Rest
Waypoint 5 of the Pain to Purpose Online Course is on Sabbath Rest (Use Coupon Code PTP50 to receive $50 off the course)
In the message I spoke at Mercy Road, I did a broad explanation of the concept of, or the “why” behind, the Sabbath. Because I wasn’t able to dive into much practicality on the topic I told everyone present that day I would write a blog post giving some practical tips on Sabbath Rest. These hacks have been helpful for us as we’re continually working to improve our rest/work rhythms. Believe me, it’s a constant work in progress (or should I say “rest-in-progress”) and with every transition in our lives, we find that we have to go back to the drawing board and reconfigure our rhythms. Again, let me emphasize that the rest of this post will probably not make much sense to you until you understand the WHY behind Sabbath Rest. See the resources I included above before you move on.
I also want to throw a shout-out to John Dekruyter at Alongside Ministries for helping to shape much of what our family believes about and practices on the Sabbath. I heard him teach on Sabbath rest while we attended this ministry counseling retreat and it revolutionized our practice of Sabbath.
So as far as practical tips go, here they are:
(1) Begin a conversation with your spouse about Sabbath Rest
Obviously if you’re not married you can skip this step. I placed it first because, if you are married, you need to be on the same page together with implementing and protecting the Sabbath. If you’re not, it will be really difficult to guard it from the activities that pull you back into the mindset of work. Chances are, you and your spouse also rest differently. Kristi and I found this out pretty quickly in our marriage. On our honeymoon trip to Mexico she wanted to play volleyball in the pool, explore, and take adventure trips. I wanted to read, veg out by the pool, and not interact with any other human beings other than my wife. It took almost the entire week of vacationing for us to figure out what refuels each of us. At the beginning of 2019 Kristi and I each took some time and wrote out on a list what each of us considers restful activities on the Sabbath. Then we compared our lists and began talking through how we could implement and guard those things for each other. I included things on my list like getting a good workout in, reading, drinking coffee, and daydreaming. She included things like going for a walk or a bike ride, reading, and shopping. We now try to incorporate a mixture of these things with the one caveat that each of us are allowed to do our own thing at any moment, no questions asked, should we desire that.
(2) Decide together on a day every week to practice the Sabbath
Rest and Margin is one of those things that you have to prioritize. If you don’t decide at the beginning of the week when you’re going to take a Sabbath, the week will sneak by you and before you know it, you’ve gone weeks without taking some time to refuel and recharge. Especially if you’re a hard-charging personality like me who tends to say “yes" to way more things than you say “no” to, you need to carve out the time before the week begins. When you’re building a financial budget, you carve out the space for the your most important expenditures. Your time and energy are limited resources and I would consider them your absolute most important expenditures. For that reason it is even more important to carve out space to protect your rest.
Our family’s Sabbath day changes almost weekly. We usually practice Sabbath from sun-down one day to sun-down the next day. We’ve found that this helps us decidedly disengage from work, enjoy an evening winding down, and allowing us to wake up feeling rested and excited about having zero obligations that day. This also helps us re-engage at the end of the Sabbath and get things ready for the start of a new work-week.
Because I work most Sundays speaking at churches, our family’s Sabbath takes place from Thursday night - Friday night OR from Friday night - Saturday night (depending on travel schedules). The beautiful thing about Sabbath is you’re not locked in to having to do it any particular day. So if we happen to have a crazy weekend one week because I’m traveling and speaking, we can choose a day in the middle of the week to Sabbath. The point is to just take a 24 hr period and stop working.
(There may be seasons that because of your work schedule or other limiting factors, you and your spouse have to Sabbath on different days. I don’t recommend this, because you miss out on some of the sweet, intimate connection that slowing down can avail you; however, it may be unavoidable. Again, the bigger win is that you both create space to rest, even if it must be separately.)
(3) Involve your Kids
Again, if you don’t have kids you can skip this step as well. We decided to involved our kids in the Sabbath. There was a brief period after Kristi and I got married where we would have a family member watch our kids for those 24 hours so we could rest together sans kiddos (and occasionally we will still do that), however Sabbath for the most part has now become a family affair. Now with a newborn in the house, it will be a while before we’re able to off-load the kids to take a Sabbath rest away just the two of us. For that reason we look at this season as an opportunity to teach our kids how to honor God by resting one day each week. Not only that we want our kids to learn they are loved not for what they produce or do, but for who they are. This is the essence of the Sabbath. God wants us to be reminded each and every week that He loves us for who we are, not for what we do.
We have made it a tradition each Sabbath evening to commemorate it with a special meal with our kids, called Shabbat (this is the Hebrew term for Sabbath). It’s funny because our kids now refer to this meal along with the following day of rest as Shabbat. This meal is usually some kind of take-out so that we don’t have to cook. We kick the meal off by turning off our phones, turning on some music, closing the door to the home office and lighting what has been affectionately termed the “Shabbat Candle.” Our kids now fight over who’s going to close daddy’s home office door and help shut things down for a full 24 hours. I think the thought of getting our undivided attention for 24 hours is something they revere.
During the Shabbat dinner we will usually give the kids things they aren’t normally allowed to eat or drink. We give them juice (that’s not watered down) and usually a dessert. This is to teach them that God has richly blessed us and that we should celebrate it and be grateful for it. Then I will go around the table, placing my hands on their heads and pray for each of our family members individually. Believe me, it was really awkward the first few times we did this, but it has become an extremely special tradition for our whole family and many times I finish the prayer fighting back tears or gratitude for what God has done for us.
After Shabbat dinner we will either play games together or do a family movie. Usually we let the kids stay up a little later on this night since there is nothing in particular to wake up for the next morning. The next day we do whatever we feel like doing with a few regulations (which I’ll get to in numbers 4, 5, and 6). This usually entails laying around the house and reading by a fire, or loading up the bikes and going for a family bike ride, or finding some kind of adventure to get into together. We try to do anything that would cause us to well up with gratitude and worship for what God has done for us as well as allows us to fully disconnect from work.
This leads us to the only 3 rules we have as a family for Sabbath. And each of these come from a couple scriptural commands we see surrounding Sabbath . . .
(4) Rule Number One: Don’t Toil
Exodus 35:2
”For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death.”
This one is pretty self-explanatory. This just means NO WORK. Now I know that seems pretty harsh that God would mandate his people to put someone to death if they violated the Sabbath, and I don’t want you to get hung up on that. It would take hundreds of words to explain the significance of this in Old Testament Covenantal Law and I don’t have the time to write that. However, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that from a biological and physiological stand-point, research shows that we could be shortening our lifespans by not taking frequent rest periods. Our bodies were not meant to go Mach-6 with our hair on fire all the time.
I like to define work as any activity that is advancing my “Kingdom" or God’s Kingdom — anything that moves the proverbial ball forward and anything that I feel obligated to. Sabbath is not a day to catch up on emails, or writing, or podcasting, or texting people, or coaching, or strategic planning. It’s a day to sit back and rest and attempt to completely disconnect from work. For this reason, I have found that since I work with my mind, much of my rest involves doing things with my hands, such as working out, playing with the kids outside, going hiking or biking with Kristi, or even on occasion, doing yard work while I listen to good preaching. These things refuel and replenish me. The key is to find things things that replenish your soul and do a lot of those things on the Sabbath — just don't work! Conversely, if you work with your hands during the week, you may find that what replenishes you is to resting with your mind, namely reading or watching a movie, or drinking coffee or tea with good friends and family.
In order to fully practice this, I have to turn my phone off. If it’s not off I will find myself out of habit checking email. In order to fully disconnect from work, I usually have to completely disconnect from people. Since much of my work involves ministering to and pouring out to people, I have to take this day to detach from society, otherwise I will be tempted to break my commitment to Sabbath rest because of the needs I see I could be meeting.
(5) Rule Number Two: Don’t Trigger
Exodus 35:3
”Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day.”
This one sounds weird but, but essentially the way our we’ve chosen to apply this commandment is don’t do anything that would activate (or trigger) your mind and attention to head down the rabbit hole of work. So for Kristi and I, this means there are certain topics of conversation, particularly work-related or ministry-related, that are off-limits. This is really hard for me. There are so many times on the Sabbath that God begins downloading visions, dreams, and creative ideas on me — because I’ve finally created space to listen to Him — and since I’m an external processor I want to begin immediately talking to Kristi about these. These conversations, however, are not restful to her. So we’ve outlawed them on the Sabbath. If I begin having some ideas that I want to flesh out with her, I take a moment, write them down in a notebook so I don’t loose the idea, and then put the notebook away and go about practicing rest.
Another thing I’ve found that triggers me is Instagram. Since most of the people I follow are people who are ministry leaders or entrepreneurs, I tend to get great ideas from watching how other people market their services and share their ministry experiences. Following these people can be really inspiring, but it can also lead me down an endless path of exhaustion, overwhelm and comparison. For that reason, I try to make it a practice to turn off all social media.
Finally, the last thing that can trigger me are texts, messages, and notifications. So, you guessed it, all of these get turned off too. This helps to ensure that nothing can draw my attention toward work. I love to work and I’m prone to work-aholism and finding my identity in what I achieve and accomplish. So it’s not difficult for the enemy to ensnare me like a pig with a hook in his nose and lead me back into work on the Sabbath. I have to take extra measures to make rest a priority each week.
You may find it helpful to put a vacation responder on your email and let your team/employees/clients/congregation know what day you Sabbath. Asking them to partner with you in this can help tremendously. You’d surprised how well people will honor your day off if you just inform them of it.
(6) Rule Number Three: Don’t Trade
Nehemiah 10:31
“When the neighboring peoples bring merchandise or grain to sell on the Sabbath, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on any holy day.”
This sounds a whole lot like the legalistic mandates that were imposed on many of us growing up in regards to the Sabbath, namely no shopping, no going to movies, and no eating out on Sundays. But I don’t believe this is the heart behind this command. First of all I believe the heart behind this verse is that again, we need to cease activity that would generate progress or achievement in our lives.
Secondly, our family has chosen to look at this command through our context living in a consumeristic Westernized culture. Marketers will tell you that in order to get people to buy things from you, you must create a dissatisfied market. The reason we go hunt for deals, buy, sell and trade is ultimately because we’re not satisfied with what we have and where we are presently. I believe the commandment in Nehemiah is speaking directly to the heart of dissatisfaction and discontentment — which is quite the opposite of the heart posture we should be seeking on the Sabbath. For this reason, Kristi and I have thought through what kinds of things tend to make us dissatisfied and discontent, and we try to stay away from those things on the Sabbath. Again, for me, the predominate thing that can get me moving down the road of dissatisfaction is social media, especially Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. When I look at these things I can easily slip into longing for things and experiences I don’t have. This feeds a wrong spirit in me. The spirit I want to feed on the Sabbath is a spirit of contentment and peace with where God has me in life.
I also have found that we need to make a concerted effort to get our house as clean and as tidy as we can before we start our Sabbath day. That way we’re not gazing the whole day dissatisfied by the clutter and messiness of our rooms and spaces. We are able to rest in contentment much more peacefully when things are put away in their proper places.
I would suggest taking some time to reflect on and take inventory of the types of activities that stir up a dissatisfied spirit in you and avoid these kinds of activities and conversations on the Sabbath.