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As the pandemic seems to impact everyday life less, many are feeling the exhausting effects of jumping back into busyness. May this adapted extract from The Art of Rest by Adam Mabry remind us all that rest is a good thing.
I can relate to exiled Israel, who quickly forget about God’s command to keep the Sabbath.
Maybe you can, too. It’s so easy to let go of the rhythm of rest, forget all that rest is meant to help us remember, let loose a flood of issues, and by that stage be so far into forgetfulness that we wonder where all these issues came from and how on earth we might turn the tide.
The physical issues are first. Then come the emotional ones. Finally, the spiritual weakness and passionlessness arrive. Perhaps for you it started with a life transition: a new baby, a job loss, the workload of school, or climbing the career ladder. It was only going to be once... or for a season... but you stopped showing up for the Sabbath rest.
Maybe the first time it was an accident. The second time it was expedient. And now... well, now you can’t remember why you ever rested in the first place. You’re caught in a new ritual—one without rest.
What leads to this spiritual amnesia? It’s irritatingly simple: we forget when we forget to remember.
God gave Israel the Sabbath—the special day of rest, remembrance, recuperation, and recreation. Life in the ancient Near East was hard—harder, I dare say, than most of our lives.
Working for food from sunrise to sunset, living off the land, in constant danger of being attacked by neighboring tribes—that was their life. The idea of taking a day away from toil must have seemed a little crazy. And yet it was this day that was given to them as their ritual, so that they could remember.
But they didn’t keep the ritual. They dismissed the art of rest. They forgot to remember.
"It’s no different for us when it comes to Christian rest. The Sabbath ritual of rest is given for us to remember God, ourselves, and the true story of the world."
Maybe they forgot to remember why they needed to rest: “Was it for rest? Or worship? Or... well, never mind. It’s a busy season of the year and it’s almost time for harvest. Better put in a few more hours of work...”
When we forget the reason for the ritual of rest, it becomes pretty easy to forget the rest itself.
In our family, every Thursday night is family movie night. We began this ritual back when our first child was barely able to watch a movie, but the idea wasn’t the movie itself. It was to build a family moment into the week—an intentional time of togetherness.
But, over the years, the night started to change. Gradually, Hope [my wife] and I found this a good moment to get a little extra work done, or to take a moment for ourselves, while the kids were sitting still and quiet. Then, it got less quiet as the kids began to argue over the movie, or the popcorn, or whatever.
Over a period of time, we allowed ourselves to forget the point of the ritual, and so it stopped working. In fact, because we forgot the reason for the ritual, we had already started forging new rituals (like work, extra time out, and so on).
Israel had done the same thing. First, they forgot the reasons for the ritual. Then they forged new rituals, until finally they forgot the godly rituals altogether. And with that, they forgot to remember the great truths that the ritual was intended to remind them of.
It’s no different for us when it comes to Christian rest. The Sabbath ritual of rest is given for us to remember God, ourselves, and the true story of the world. Letting go of rest means acquiescing to the spiritual amnesia that so tragically marked our forebears.
God gave us regular, weekly times to stop in order to know (because we’re bound to forget) that it is God who is God, not us.
In The Art of Rest, Adam Mabry shows us how rest helps us make space for relationships, shared experiences and moments to remember; how it liberates us from the pressure of self-reliance; how it gives us a chance to think and reflect; and how it stops us from burning out.
Adam Mabry is Lead Pastor of Aletheia Church Boston, MA, a rapidly-growing downtown church. He is married to Hope and they have four children. Before planting Aletheia, they had planted two churches in Edinburgh, Scotland. Adam did his theological studies at Reformed Theological Seminary and is studying for a PhD at Aberdeen. Adam is author of Stop Taking Sides and The Art of Rest.
