Christianity Today’s Leslie Leyland Fields offers an excellent review of Matthew Sleeth’s new book on Sabbath, 24/6: A Prescription for a Healthier, Happier Life.
Sleeth makes a winsome case for a return to Sabbath “rest, renewal and reverence.” … We take comfort from our work obsession, he notes, because “[i]f work is the meaning of our lives, then more work equals more meaning.” To balance hard work, we engage in hard play. But there’s a biblical solution to our collective freneticism: work hard—then stop, a rhythm where “the work takes on more meaning and the stopping takes on holiness.”
On a website like Reintegrate, it might seem that we lift work to such a level that all else is without purpose. But let this be known: Sabbath has meaning and purpose!
Without practicing the Sabbath, we simply wear ourselves out. Without Sabbath, work becomes vanity, for we no longer allow ourselves to submit to God’s direction and provision. Without the Sabbath, we allow ourselves to become “control freaks,” working all the more frenetically to do that which we cannot possibly get accomplished anyway.
- Are you allowing yourself to live in the healthy rhythm of work and rest?
- Can you identify why you struggle to do so?
- What will you need to do to relinquish full control over that which you need and want to accomplish by resting and trusting God?
Image by Banlon1964. Used with permission. Sourced via Flickr.
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