Set aside a day for rest?

I benefited from reading some of Ray Ortlund's thoughts on setting aside a day for worship, rest and time with family every week. Personally, rest is not something I do well (that sounds funny for some reason, ha). Often I think resting is just the absence of doing anything, but actually, I think it requires a lot of intentionality. It requires planning, and it requires trust that it will be okay even if I forego doing some of the things I think are absolutely necessary to get done. Obviously, some emergent things can't be neglected at times, but you get my drift.

Anyway, this practical implement of worship and rest into one's week has been very hard for me to adapt of the past few years. But I have realized, when the Lord has given me the grace to prioritize it, it has been quite a blessing to me. I hope we all pray for the discipline, faith and wisdom to set aside more time for the Lord during our week. I think Ray does a nice job summarizing the purpose of a "Sabbath rest" during the week. 

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Is the Sabbath still relevant? Ray Ortlund

Is the Sabbath still relevant?

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”  Exodus 20:8

Let’s not dictate Sabbath observance today.  The point of the Sabbath is a dress rehearsal for a future eternity of glad rest in God.  So, for now, every one of us can work out the details personally.  But in our frantic modern world, the Sabbath offers wisdom that has lasted since the beginning (Genesis 2:2-3).  It is not written on our calendars as much as we are built into its calendar.  It seems to be part of the God-created rhythm for weekly human flourishing.

If we did set apart one day each week for rejuvenation in God, we would immediately add to every year over seven weeks of vacation.  And not for doing nothing but for worship, for friends, for mercy, for an afternoon nap, for reading and thinking, for lingering around the dinner table and sharing good jokes and tender words and personal prayers.

How else can we find quietness of heart in today’s world?  If anyone has a more biblical (and more immediately beneficial) place to begin, I’m open.  But raising hermeneutical objections to the Sabbath principle doesn’t in itself actually help any of us.

I wonder if the very concept of “the weekend” is biblical.  It seems to me that “the weekend” turns Sunday into a second Saturday.  Home Depot may gain, but we lose.  It turns Sunday into a day to catch up on what we didn’t do Saturday or a day to ramp up for what’s ahead on Monday.  It hollows out our whole week, because it marginalizes God and church and sermons and all the other vital things that happen in our lives only when we make the vital things also the central things.  If we accept the concept of “the weekend,” we risk “fitting God in” rather than centering our every week around him.  We risk living soul-exhausted lives, and wondering why God isn’t more real to us, why we’re grumpy.

If we want to find our way back into quietness of heart and reality with God, the first step might be simple.  Bold, but simple.