finding rest

I was reading through Hebrews with my friends Luke and Simon a couple of weeks ago, and was taken by 4:9-11a...

So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who enter into God's rest will find rest from their labours, just as God rested after creating the world. Let us do our best to enter that place of rest.

Part of the reason it stood out to me was because of the tiredness I feel at the moment, but since then, I've read or heard people talking about Sabbath or rest 4 or 5 times (obviously something I need to think about, right...?) As I've reflected on it, I've realised that most of the time I think about Sabbath or rest in terms of what I should not do - I shouldn't work, I shouldn't think about ministry, I shouldn't do certain things, etc. I've been trying to work out what re-creates me (don't have any real answers yet), so that I can do whatever that is as part of my rest, but I've also stumbled across something I've never heard anyone talk about before.

Andy Stanley spoke at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit last year, and he talked about the trust involved in making his decision to work 45 hours a week, so that he could make family the priority it deserved (feel uncomfortable about that idea? Maybe you need to think about it a bit more!) In doing that, he's had to throw himself back on God and say "God, I've given all I can, you need to do the rest" - something I think a lot of us don't do often enough.

But here's the bit that stands out to me. Sabbath is actually about trust. Sabbath is less about what we do (or don't do) and more about getting perspective. When I choose to have a Sabbath rest, I stop doing long enough to realise God can accomplish anything he wants without me, and that's very freeing. That's why it's a spiritual discipline, because it's (as I am starting to think most spiritual disciplines are) more about recognising who God is and what God's doing than it is about me.

To take a Sabbath is to hear God say remember who's the one who's actually at work here - you're a participant, sure, but it's my work. It is to hear God say this is about far more than just what you can do. It's to hear God say I'm at work in the hearts and lives of the people I love, so rest in the assurance that it's not all on your shoulders. It's to hear God say "I will give you rest", because "my yoke fits perfectly and the burden I give you is light" (Matt 11:29-30)