Kristin Fitch shares a mini episode focused on the importance of honoring the Sabbath, emphasizing that it serves as a weekly holiday meant for rest, delight, and connection with God and loved ones. Drawing insights from John Mark Comer's book, "The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry," she discusses how many people struggle to prioritize time for God amidst their busy lives. Kristin highlights the dual nature of the Sabbath—both a cessation of work and an invitation to enjoy life's simple pleasures. She reflects on how taking the Sabbath can lead to a deeper sense of joy and renewal, ultimately enriching our lives. By encouraging listeners to explore and experiment with incorporating Sabbath practices into their routines, Kristin aims to inspire a more intentional and fulfilling way of living.

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Takeaways:

• Sabbath is a weekly holiday meant for rest, delight, and reconnection with God.
• Following Jesus requires intentional scheduling and prioritizing amidst the busyness of life.
• The Hebrew word for Sabbath, 'Shabbat', emphasizes stopping, resting, and delighting in God.
• Regularly practicing Sabbath can lead to increased joy and longevity in life.
• Sabbath isn't just a day; it's a spirit of restfulness that permeates our lives.
• Honoring the Sabbath can transform our weekly rhythms and lead to deeper connections.

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Sabbath, rest, Sabbath Soup, John Mark Comer, Faithfield Woman, spiritual practices, weekly rest, delight in the Lord, renewing your spirit, Christian life, Sabbath benefits, time management, honoring the Sabbath, connection with God, intentional living, joy and gratitude, Christian faith, work-life balance, Sabbath reflection, life rhythm

Hey.

Hey, friends.

And welcome back to Faithfield Woman.

This is your host, Kristin.

Today I have a mini episode for you that I wanted to release right before my next interview comes out today.

I actually wanted to share with you a little bit about the Sabbath.

And I've talked, I've done another, at least one other episode about the Sabbath before.

But as I was preparing for my interview today with a my guest is the author of a book called Sabbath Soup, which is basically weekly menus and rhythms to make space for a day of rest.

So that episode's about to come out.

But as I was preparing for it, I was reviewing the book again, the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer.

And some things really stood out to me today.

So while I've shared about this before, he just brings up so many things, so many beautiful things about why we should want to honor and rest on the Sabbath, what the benefit is to us.

And so I want to share some of those things with you today as I'm about to share about the book Sabbath Soup and my guest's perspective and then what she does in her life and how she invites you to do the same.

Okay, so let me just get to what I wanted to share here.

Oh, first of all, he says this, and it's not necessarily just about the Sabbath, but it's about our lives.

He's then John Mark Comer says following Jesus has to make it onto your schedule and into your practices or it will simply never happen.

Apprenticeship to Jesus will remain an idea, not a reality in your life.

And then he goes on to say, but here's the rub.

Most of us are too busy to follow Jesus, all right?

And then he's basically giving people, like their people have excuses like, well, I'm busy.

I'm doing these things, right?

They're putting other priorities on their schedule.

Then they say, oh, I don't have time for God or following Jesus or the Sabbath.

And so he says most of us have more than enough time to work with, even in busy seasons of life.

We just have to reallocate our time to seek first the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of entertainment.

And totally get it.

I am also somebody working through this, right?

Trying to prioritize God in trying to make more time, weekly time for the Sabbath.

And one of the things he talks about the Sabbath is it's really like a week having a holiday every week, a weekly holiday, because it's a day that we're supposed to rest and it's a day we're supposed to delight and so we're going to talk more about that concept as I go through some of the things that he shares.

Okay, See here.

All right, not that part.

Okay.

So he says Sabbath basically comes to us from Hebrew, Hebrew word Shabbat, which actually means to stop.

So it means to stop doing, to stop working, to stop wanting, to stop worrying.

It's just to stop.

And it's to delight in the Lord and what he's created, you know, in this world, in our lives.

But it's also to honor him, to connect with him, to worship Him.

So it's just a stop from all the doing and actually allow ourselves to find rest, find renewal, time for reflection, and then time for connection with him and with the people in our lives and to allow our souls and our minds to get back in alignment, to slow us down after six days of busyness or working.

Okay.

And as I said, it's also about delighting.

So he says another way that the word Shabbat can be translated is to delight.

And so he goes on to explain that, you know, it's.

It is a dual concept, meaning that we are to rest or stop, but we're also still to delight.

And so, right.

It's stopping all the busy and the worrying and wanting, and then to delight or.

Or take joy in God in our lives.

So I think, how beautiful.

And then he says.

He asked this question, or he says, to ask yourself this question.

What could I do for 24 hours that would fill my soul with a deep, throbbing joy that would make me spontaneously combust with wonder, awe, gratitude and praise?

And he shares this quote by Dan Allender from the Book of Sabbath.

And it's pretty beautiful.

He says the Sabbath is an invitation to enter delight.

The Sabbath, when experienced as God intended, is the best day of our lives.

Without question or thought, it is the best day of the week.

It is the day we anticipate on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and the day we remember on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Sabbath is the holy time where we feast, play, dance, have sex, sing, pray, laughter, tell stories, read, paint, walk, and watch creation in its fullness.

Few people are willing to enter the Sabbath and sanctify it to make it holy, because a full day of delight and joy is more than most people can bear in a lifetime, let alone a week.

That sounds beautiful to me.

I don't know about you.

And there's a couple examples in his books or book.

I can only find one of the examples today while I was looking through it.

But he explains that when we take the Sabbath, we Get that renewal.

But it actually adds life to our days, to our life, and it obviously makes our life more enjoyable.

He shares that a doctor had done a survey of, you know, inciting, cited the happiest people on earth and near the top of the list was a group of Christians, right, that are called Seventh Day Adventists, Adventists.

And they are a group Christian group that actually honors the Sabbath.

So they take the Sabbath usually weekly.

And it turns out that seven day Seventh Day Adventists actually tend to live ten years longer than the average American.

Well, he think he did the math and said if someone takes a Sabbath every seven days over a lifetime, it adds up for to 10 more years.

So in other words, there is a correlation with us taking that day to rest regularly, not working and not worrying, not being so busy.

That adds life gaze to our life.

Excuse me.

And he share, I think it's him that shared in his book, but I cannot find it today that there are.

I don't know if it was a pastor he's sharing about or just a person, but I mean if that's their line of work.

And he explains that when we try to just work, work, work, work straight through without taking rest, the days to rest, taking the Sabbath, what happens is the more that we don't take the breaks, eventually it catches up with us, right?

We become more exhausted, we get burned out, some people end up ill.

And so in other words, it's just hard on our bodies.

We were designed for the Sabbath.

And so he goes on to say, see if I can find it.

Okay, he says, but when we fight this rhythm, ignore it, suppress it, push past it, bully it, make excuses, look for a way to get out of it, we reap the consequences.

And he says, consider the mind.

We grow mentally lethargic, numb, uncreative, distracted, restless, emotional unhealth becomes our new normal.

Irritability, anger, cynicism and its twin sarcasm overwhelm our defenses and take control of our dispositions.

And then he says, consider the body.

We get tired and worn out, our immune systems start to falter, miss a step, another cold.

It's like our nervous system systems are trying to get our attention.

And then he goes on to say, see?

Well, I'll skip that part.

Okay, let me get to the next page.

And then he says, basically, you know, the Sabbath, to obey the Sabbath is actually one of the commandments.

And he explains that instead of saying we should, what does it say?

Remember the Sabbath.

It then says, let me see here.

Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy as the Lord your God has commanded you six days you shall labor and do all your work the seventh day of the Sabbath to the Lord your God.

Let me jump up ahead a little bit more.

All right.

He goes on to say, I'll just paraphrase this part that basically the Sabbath is much like a guerilla warfare tactic, but we want to break free from the restless relentlessness for more.

And we just want to not be a doer, you know, so not a consumer, if you will.

Not buying, not selling, not shopping, not, you know, ordering more things from Amazon.

We just want to instead drink deeply from the well of ordinary life.

He says, a meal with friends, time with family, a walk in the forest, afternoon tea.

Above all, slow down long enough to enjoy life with God, who offers everything that materialism promises but can never deliver on, namely contentment.

And let's see.

Okay, like, just a couple more things I wanted to share.

All right.

It says also, he explains that when you take the Sabbath regularly, it doesn't just impact your seventh day, it impacts your entire schedule.

It impacts every part of your life and every part of your being.

He says this because the Sabbath isn't just a 24 hour time slot in your weekly schedule.

It's a spirit of restfulness that goes with you throughout your week.

A way of living with ease, gratitude, appreciation, peace and prayer.

A way of working from rest, not for rest with nothing to prove.

A way of bearing fruit from abiding, not ambition.

Okay.

And then he says about himself, the Sabbath is the day I feel most connected to God, most connected to my wife and family, to my own soul.

It's the day I feel most awake and yet most at peace.

The day I expect joy in the day that sets the tone for my entire week.

Okay.

Okay.

So he says this is about his own experience with taking the Sabbath.

Let's see.

Oh, sorry.

So first, before I share that, he says, he kind of talks about what he might do on a.

On a Sabbath day.

And he says, let's see, we sleep in Saturday morning, drink coffee, read our Bibles, pray more, spend time together, talk, laugh in summer, we walk to the park in winter, make a fire, get lost in good novels on the couch, cuddle.

Now we make love.

And so it sounds quite beautiful to me.

I don't know about you.

And yet I still find that it is a challenge for so many of us to commit to honoring this day of rest, this day of stopping, of trying to accomplish in the.

In a day of just allowing us to be right in the world in God's.

Presence and in each other's presence and in our own presence.

And so he says this about his own Sabbath day.

And something happens about halfway through the day, something hard to put language to.

It's like my soul catches up to my body, like some deep part of me that got beat up and drowned out by meetings and email and Twitter and relational conflict.

And the difficulty of life comes back to the surface of my heart.

I feel free.

Free from the need to do more, get more, be more.

Free from the spirit, evil, demonic spirit of the restlessness that enslaves our society.

I'll feel another spirit, Holy Spirit, of my restful calm settle over my whole person.

And I find that my ordinary life is enough.

How beautiful is that?

And so the other thing.

Let me see.

I wrote some notes down.

Let me just see if I.

Everything I wanted to.

So, you know, basically, the Sabbath gives us a richer life and it gives us more life.

As I talked about.

Just go back to.

And, oh, he said this.

And I like the statement he says.

And in doing so, he's talking about.

I'm sorry, he's talking about the Sabbath and that God, right, created for six days, and then he rested on the seventh day.

So that's what he had just spoken about.

And two things.

The first was, Jesus says the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

And it's talking about, right, we're good.

We're designed to God's image.

God rested on the seventh day.

We are designed to rest on the seventh day.

It's designed for us to allow for that renewal, that connection, reflection and rest.

And then he shares this quote.

And in doing so, he built a rhythm into the DNA of creation.

Tempo, syncopated beat.

God worked for six, rested for one.

When we fight this work, six days, Sabbath, one day rhythm, we go against the grain of the universe.

And I think we need to just remember that, that the Sabbath was designed in God's image.

And it was designed for us to delight in and to allow us time to rest, enjoy, to be in joy, to be in communication, and for our souls and bodies to come back and our hearts into alignment.

Right?

So it's such a beautiful concept.

It's still something I'm working on, you know, because I still live in a family with three now adult sons and my husband.

And they're not necessarily going to do this or be.

Be on board.

And so it's a little bit tricky for me, although I will say without calling it me, honoring the Sabbath, I often do more on Saturday than Sunday.

But sometimes it's Sunday.

I do often do very little.

Like I, I relax, I sit outside, you know.

So I would say I'm honoring it to some level, but I could definitely be more intentional with honoring the Sabbath day in my own life.

So this is still an ongoing process for me as well.

But I think all the things I shared with you today make me want more of honoring and taking or prioritizing a weekly holiday, a Sabbath day in my own life.

And so I hope this just encourages you to explore, experiment and consider if, if honoring the Sabbath every day is for you, right?

And maybe as humans, it's hard for us to start with fully doing it, but what if we invited for part of our day to take the time for rest or reflection, to connect with God, to have more quiet, to allow slowness to seep back into us.

So I think anywhere we start is still what God wants for us.

He's still inviting us into this.

And it is a process probably for us, right?

And so I just encourage you explore, experiment, try it out and see always your day different.

How is your week different?

When you say I'm going to take the entire day to stop and to delight.

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