GOD’S PLAN FOR UNHEALTHY STRESS BY UNWRAPPING HIS GIFT OF REST 3/10/25

UNWRAPPING GOD’S GIFT OF REST 3/10/25

ROY KING

INTRODUCTION:

I am amazed as I meet people and see the frantic fatigue that has become the context for most of our lives. Get with any group and listen to people describe the pain caused by how overwhelming its pace has become. In the below-the-surface conversation, a significant symptom is the crushing sense of: What should I do? Am I doing enough? How can I fix (fill in the blank) so I can do more?  

Listen to our small talk. How often we say things like, “I wish we could get together…but there is so much to do.”  Maybe during the infrequent vacation break we taste a life-giving moment to just sit in a rocking chair on a porch with a friend.  But it is too little and irregular to keep us nourished and refreshed.

My best friend is several hours away but we talk almost weekly for an hour or more each time. When we make the call, we have a standard opening.  I often initiate the call.  He says, brightly answering, “How is my buddy?”  And I respond, “I needed some time with my friend.”  And we both laugh and plunge into our visit.  It flows from how our families are doing, to what we are reading, to struggles we are processing, to Bible passages which God is using to reshape us, and on and on. The day seems lighter and brighter.  There is more hope in my horizon.

I have walked through seasons of depression since my early 20s.  One symptom and also a contributor to the depression cycling down is losing space for renewing, refreshing rest.  Sleep shortage and a lack of renewal contribute to many physical & mental health problems.

One answer is to quit life.  Go offline.  Find a cabin in the woods and escape.  But that does not work for most of us.  

What we need is to recover God’s design for life.  

God made us to be our best when we live in a rhythm of daily life, continually be RECEIVING AND GIVING, TAKING IN AND FLOWING OUT.  

WE WERE MADE FOR FRUITFUL WORK

God’s design is to produce, be fruitful, and operate with a clear vision of our life purpose being larger than just ourselves. We aim, stretch, and aspire towards goals. We were made to go into a barren field, till it, sow it, and grow things. We raise our children, and we generate causes with creativity, sweat, and courage to attempt to make the world different; better.

BUT, FRUITFUL LABOR IS DESIGNED TO DRAIN US.  WORK DEPLETES.

WE RUN DOWN.

SO GOD HAS ALSO MADE YOU TO RESTORE BY TAKING IN RESOURCES FROM OUTSIDE OF YOURSELF.

We need a daily rhythm of receiving in and giving out, a weekly rhythm of six days of production, and one day of being non-productive; at rest.

Is there a rhythm that allows us to move into life to advance, develop, and grow things, ourselves, and relationships, and yet not live on the edge of chronic fatigue?

WHAT I SHOULD DO WITH MY LIFE IS A GOOD QUESTION.  

BUT I ALSO NEED TO ASK HOW SHOULD I LIVE?

I believe God has given us an answer.  It is found in the rhythm God has established for life.  There are three primary LIFE RHYTHMS:

1. DAILY – RECEIVING AND GIVING NIGHT AND DAY
2. WEEKLY – PRODUCING AND REFRESHING SIX DAYS AND ONE
3. FEASTS AND FASTS – SEASONS MARKED BY CELEBRATIONS (A MIX OF Serious and Festive)

I will write more about feasts and fasts in another place later.  Right now let’s focus on daily and weekly life.  Most of us book our schedules and consume life in these daily and weekly bite-sized pieces.

There is a flow of life in the daily, weekly, and seasonal overall rhythm.  Like the tides, it goes in and out.  We are awake and we are asleep.  We are ON and we are just as good as being OFF.  We often need to be reminded that God even commands us to rest many more times in the Bible than commanding fruitful labor and how it is to be done.  Both are clearly taught.  Check it out for yourself.  Start in Genesis 1 and see labor and rest as God’s blueprint for us.  But why did the Sabbath make it into God’s TOP TEN and work did not?

HOW TO VIEW SABBATH REST?

Think of a balance scale and we must avoid the extremes.

ONE EXTREME IS TO IGNORE SABBATH

I have worked closely with people who ignore the off switch. They are always in high-capacity athlete-level training at full throttle.

We ignore God’s created patterns and simply live with the self as the focus. This was the point of much of God’s complaints against Israel. There was a driven motive to produce and sell more, causing them to ignore the Sabbath.  Nehemiah had to lock the gates and threaten to turn the soldiers loose on them in Neh. 13.  

Also see Isa 58:13  “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD’S holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your way and not doing as you please speaking idle words,”

THE OTHER EXTREME IS TO BIND PEOPLE WITH RESTRICTIONS ON SABBATH PRACTICE

God intended REST to be NON-PRODUCTIVE, more like PLAY.

But some people make everything about earning and performing.  They present the Sabbath as lots of laws, with restrictions on times of day or week, and actually drown the celebratory freedom and childlike play God intended.

Remember my attempt to describe the conversation with my friend earlier in this paper? To apply this extreme, we would have a printed check list of topics and must spend three minutes on each one in this set order. That does not sound at all enticing or attractive. How could Jesus call a Sabbath like that a gift from God to people?

One of the reasons they crucified Jesus…He broke the Sabbath…

John 5:18  For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

THE BALANCED LIFESTYLE OF JESUS ON PRACTICING SABBATH

On the Sabbath, Jesus taught, went to the synagogue, satisfied hunger on the road when travelling, healed, and ministered to needs.

MARK 2:27,28  Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  [28]So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” 

In his healing on the Sabbath, he saw this kind of giving to another as keeping a higher law of loving another person. If God’s prescribed renewing rest includes acts of love for the benefit of another, that could explain why I often feel recharged and blessed when I seek to love others.

I PLAN SABBATH REST INTO MY LIFE OUT OF HONOR AND RESPECT AND LOVE TO MY GOD NOT OUT OF SEEKING GOD’S APPROVAL

WHAT IS SABBATH REST?

IT IS NOT SO MUCH A SET DAY AS A RECOGNITION OF RHYTHM.

COMPARE THE SABBATH TO PRACTICES IN LOVE RELATIONSHIPS. YOU NEED TIME WITH YOUR SPOUSE.  MAYBE FRIDAY NIGHT IS YOUR STANDING DATE  NIGHT.  BUT A SICK CHILD OR A CHANGE IN WORK SCHEDULE MAKES FRIDAY UNWORKABLE.  DON’T JUST LET IT GO. THE LOSS OF INTIMATE CONNECTION AT A DEEPER LESS DISTRACTED HEART LEVEL WILL TAKE A TOLL ON THE MARRIAGE.  

YOU WILL NEVER FIND THE GOD CREATED RHYTHM IF YOU ADOPT A MIND SET OF RESTING WHEN YOU GET ALL THE WORK DONE. IT MUST BE TAKEN.

WHAT ARE SOME GOOD INGREDIENTS FOR A LIFE-GIVING SABBATH?

THREE PERSPECTIVES TO RELAXING, RENEWING REFOCUSING REST:

LOOK TO PAST – remembering

LOOK TO FUTURE – refocusing

REST IN PRESENT – refreshing

FIND HELP BY APPLYING PSALM 92 TO YOUR LIFE

Psalm 92  A psalm. A song. For the Sabbath day.

RESTORATION: THE REST IN THE PRESENT

[1] It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O Most High,

[2]to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night,

[3]to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp.

*(1-3) It is good to praise and worship God!

[4]For you make me glad by your deeds, O LORD; I sing for joy at the works of your hands.

[5]How great are your works, O LORD, how profound your thoughts!

*(4,5) I focus on the works and thoughts of God!

REFLECTION:  THE LOOK TO THE PAST

I REST FROM THE WORK OF MY HANDS TO OBSERVE THE HAND OF GOD.

[6]The senseless man does not know, fools do not understand,

[7]that though the wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish, they will be forever destroyed.

[8]But you, O LORD, are exalted forever.

[9]Surely your enemies, O LORD, will perish; all evildoers will be scattered.

*(6-9) I affirm the contrast between the temporal and the eternal.  I see the blindness of spiritual wickedness.

[10]You have exalted my horn like a wild ox; fine oils have been poured upon me.

[11]My eyes have seen the defeat of my adversaries; my ears have heard the rout of my wicked foes.

*(10-11) I look at my past and what God has done for me.

FOCUS: THE LOOK TO THE FUTURE

I REST FROM THE ROUTINE; CELEBRATE THE ETERNAL, CLARIFY MY ROLE, SET MY FOCUS…HE IS SOVEREIGN, I AM THE SERVANT.  HE IS IN CONTROL…I AM TO LOVE AND OBEY HIM…HIS STRENGTH IS MY STRENGTH BECAUSE HIS SPIRIT INDWELLS MY SPIRIT.

[12]The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;

[13]planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God.

[14]They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green,

[15]proclaiming, “The LORD is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”

*(12-15) I see God’s hand in my future.  I cherish that my life, my fruit, my growth are all the work of His hand.

WHY NOT READ PSALM 92 TO BEGIN YOUR SABBATH EXPERIMENT

Here is a suggestion: Start in the evening at sunset, like the Jewish practice of 24 hours from sunset to sunset. Light a candle. Read the Sabbath Psalm as printed above out loud, stopping at each section and talking with God and others with you about remembering God in your past week, hungering for God in the 24-hour present rest, and seeing and hearing God’s encouragement for leaning into the future week holding His hand.

• Eat slowly
• Play
• Walk
• Listen
• Be with refreshing people and laugh out loud.

What blocks you from taking Sabbath Rest?

• Never thought I should be doing it…
• Do not have the desire or feel the need for it…
• I do not know how to plan it for my life…
• I am so afraid of letting others down that I let others plan my life…

Maybe these words will help you cast off whatever is blocking you and help you enjoy unwrapping God’s gift of Sabbath. When you enter the door into God’s Resting Place, relax, do not feel guilty.

Feel free to reach out to me. 

Roy King roymking@gmail.com