Sabbath: a day of rest and worship.

August. For parents of young children, it’s the start of a school year. For me, August was the start of a new rhythm, a tuning of myself to the Lord and his ways, a deliberate opening of my previously closed hands.

In August, I started a Bible study on the feasts of Israel. I had been drawn to the beautiful imagery of Christ in each feast and I wanted to learn everything I could about them. This was the beginning of the Holy Spirit wooing me close and it’s no coincidence he chose to lead me into the wilderness of my own life while shepherding me through the wilderness in the Old Testament with the Israelites.

Moedim means “appointed times” or “festivals” in Hebrew. The root word of moed means “to repeat”. These feasts or celebrations brought a cadence into the Israelite’s lives; a calendar of its own of remembrance, reflection, and rest.

Before the feasts are laid out in scripture, the Lord reminded Moses to keep the Sabbath holy. The set of a rhythm. Exodus 20:8-11 tells us, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” The Sabbath (Shabbat) is the first moed.

I wanted to jump right into the 7 feasts with both feet. I couldn’t wait to brush up on some Hebrew, and pull out all of the resources I had carefully researched. An enormous wrench was thrown into my gears when I was convicted before we even got to the “good stuff”. It was 2024. Who has time to Sabbath? Here I am raising kids with busy schedules, running a business, nurturing a marriage, and managing a household all while trying to keep some sort of semblance of mental and physical health. There was no avoiding it. If I was going to glean any wisdom from these feasts that I was so enamored by, I had to wrestle with Sabbath.

Sabbath: a day of rest and worship. You know how when you’re car shopping and you have your eye on one particular model, then you start to notice them everywhere? Before, you must have passed dozens of the same car every day with no clue. That’s how the idea or practice of Sabbath has been for me. What started in August with a study on the 7 Feasts - Finding Christ in the Sacred Celebrations of the Old Testament, turned into the start of a new rhythm, a tuning of myself to the Lord and his ways, a deliberate opening of my previously closed hands. Since then, this ancient command of rest and worship has driven into my periphery over and over again until it demanded my full focus.

Recently, I read Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, and The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. A major theme of all is Sabbath.

While discussing the deliberate slow down and sacrifice of Sabbath with some friends, an honest question was brought to the surface. What does Sabbath look like for a wife and mother? It seems so many of these authors who share the practicalities of how they honor the Sabbath are men. How does a stay at home mom whose actual job is caring for children observe a weekly Sabbath? How does any mom (or dad) keep the Sabbath? Children need to eat on the Sabbath. Those meals require dishes. Clothes are worn on the Sabbath. For a lot of moms, Sunday is the day to prep for the week ahead. How do we keep all of the balls in the air without our prep day? We wrestled with real emotions and frustrations about how impossible it is to get everything done as it is. How can we give up 24 hours every week?

I was reminded of Mary and Martha. Luke 10:38-42, “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Martha was busy doing what she believed to be the holy work - cleaning, food prep, ensuring everything on the to-do list got accomplished so she could honor the Lord by stewarding well what was on her plate. I mean, she opened her home for him! That requires a lot of work! Isn’t this true for us? For me? I couldn’t rightly manage all the Lord has blessed me with in only 6 days. Could I?

But Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus, unwilling to allow any task - no matter how vital - to distract her or unlatch her from the presence of Jesus; she is who the Lord found favor with.

I’m sure Mary also had a full plate, but her heart was so soft and so turned towards Jesus that she knew her time in his presence was what would give her the capacity and time to manage the to-dos later. Her time in his presence was the one thing, the ONLY thing that couldn’t be taken from her. My home and the things in it, my job, my responsibilities, even my family - these are all things that I’m not promised tomorrow. Would I cherish them more if I aligned myself with Jesus and his call to rest and worship? Would their true importance rise to the top like heavy and nourishing cream? Would I stop seeing the to-dos as chores, but instead see them as honors?

It’s 2025; we have ovens, dishwashers, washing machines, and Instacart. And yet Jesus is still the same. Jealous for us to sit at his feet fully trusting that he is worth it. He is worth the mountain of tasks piling up. Worth my surrender; in it I declare that he sustains me because everything I have he gave to me and entrusted to me. He didn’t do that with the notion it would take 7 days a week for me to manage all of it.

I wonder if the Lord looks at us in our refusal to Sabbath the same way parents look at their toddlers who refuse to nap. We’ve all been there. As parents we know that the nap is imperative, it’s not just a good idea. The nap is non negotiable. But that toddler is BUSY! There’s so much to do in their little worlds! In the end, the missed nap effects the entire household. The toddler isn’t the only one who pays the consequence; the parents are drug into the mess, older siblings might have missed out on one on one time with mom or dad because of it, and the house is now a wreck because that 1 hour of rest and reset for the house (picking up toys, starting the load of laundry, wiping the syrup off the front of the fridge, a moment to breathe uninterrupted) failed to happen. The whole week might even be thrown off kilter from one missed nap. Interesting. We know how important the cadence of rest and reset is for our kids, but we fail to prioritize the same ideals into our own lives. Are our households suffering for it?

Just because it’s the Sabbath day doesn’t mean we don’t have children to feed or dishes that are in the sink, etc. We aren’t meant to be a slave to the Sabbath! Mark 2:27 says, ”The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The Sabbath is for our good! Is that what we believe? Or do we think that it’s a stressor, or that it’s setting us back?

Sometimes we believe the lie that our lives are so busy that surely God didn’t mean for us to Sabbath. If he knew how much I had to do he wouldn’t include me in the need to Sabbath. The Lord is teaching me that the Sabbath is a call to lay down my striving. By choosing to fix my gaze on him, by ceasing my work - my striving to get ahead and set myself up for success for the week; what I’m really doing is saying, “Jesus, I believe the only work that mattered was finished on the cross. My getting ahead, my striving - it’s a pitiful display of control. Will you take my never ending to-do list and make it your own, trading with me your light and easy yolk? Will you slow my life to the rhythm of your heartbeat so that only your presence commands my attention?”

Did you know that the only day the Lord declared was holy was the Sabbath? He created all 7 days. They are all good! But the Sabbath is holy. Sometimes I think we forget that remembering the Sabbath by doing no work and keeping it holy is a “best practice” not a commandment. It’s funny because I don’t try and justify myself out of keeping the commandment of “You shall not murder” by saying, “Well, if the Lord knew my enemies he would give me a pass!” Why do we separate the 4th commandment from the rest of the 10? I’m beginning to think that this is an area where the enemy has whispered his doubt to us just like he did with Adam and Eve. He says, “Did the Lord really say you can’t work on the Sabbath? Surely he would want you to be as productive and successful as possible? That 7th day sure would boost your profits. It sure would get you ahead…” We know that the enemy only steals from us what is valuable. If deceiving us out of Sabbathing is worth his effort, I wonder how powerful our resistance would be? What if we started choosing to fight spiritual warfare by honoring the Sabbath? Would our declaration of keeping the Sabbath holy leak holiness into the other 6 days? This deserves my attention and my curiosity. Maybe the Lord has been calling you to be curious about laying down your striving, laying down your getting ahead for the week, and has been calling you to abide in him too.

Am I perfectly practicing a Sabbath every single week? No. I’ve got a lot of heart work to do to be fully submitted. But what I’m choosing to lean into with open hands at the feet of Jesus is that my world isn’t more complex than the universe. And if God can rest and see that his work was good, then I can also rest and see that his work in me, his provision for me, and his presence with me is good on the Sabbath. Not forsaking my kids or home, but relishing in them because they’re a gift for me to enjoy - a tempo of grace - not a tick on my to-do list. Sabbath is how I can do that. Sabbath was made for my good and I am choosing to believe that.