3.1 Sabbath and Solitude

Life is noisy. We are pulled in hundreds of directions, work, school, sports, kids' practices, tournaments, friendships, marriage, and that's all just a Monday afternoon. And the problem is, physically, we keep up. We push ourselves to get it all done, but our souls are slowly suffering. We just keep piling on noise, responsibilities, distractions, activity, and eventually find ourselves numb and burnt out. Think about building a fire. You need fuel and you need space. The logs are the fuel, but if there is no space between the logs, the fire will get snuffed out. The same is true for our souls. The activities themselves may not be bad, but if we have no space built around our lives, the fire is going to die out. God gives us something in scripture called the Sabbath. All the way back to creation, God created the world and in its six days, and on the seventh day, He rested. He took a Sabbath. Everything He created those six days, He called good, but the Sabbath day, He calls holy. Sabbath is God's invitation to us to stop stacking the logs and to now make space for the oxygen to get to the flames. The Sabbath, a day set apart to rest from work.

And it's important to note here, practically speaking, that the Sabbath day is not the same thing as a day off. You know it's true. What do you do on your days off? You get all of the things done you could not do the other days. Laundry, dishes, mowing, changing the car's oil, fill in the blank. Just because you don't get paid to do it does not mean it's not still work. So then the question becomes, what do you do on the Sabbath? Well, a good way to think of it is with four pillars. Four ways that the original Hebrew word for Sabbath can be translated. And those are stop, rest, delight, and worship. Practically, here's how it could look. First, stop. Put the laptop away. Don't respond to emails. Maybe even set your phone on do not disturb for the day. Don't even get on social media. Actually cease from working. This teaches us a lesson in humility that life still moves and time still progresses. The next, rest. Sleep in on the Sabbath. Take a nap, relax. Drink a good cup of coffee or two or three. Next, delight.

I like to think of Sabbath as a weekly holiday. So it should be filled with your favorite things. Time with family, friends, veg out. My kids have learned this. They'll ask for cookies for breakfast on the Sabbath. And you know what I tell them? Go for it. Today, we delight. For a filter here, always ask, is this thing I'm about to do life-giving for me? If it is, go for it. Because for some people, what is work might be rest for someone else. You might get a lot of rest out of going on a jog. I am not. I am going to see that as work. So if you ask that question, is this thing life-giving for me? It'll help you decide if this falls in the delight category. The next pillar is the word worship. Ultimately, thank God for His goodness in every season and worship Him. Put the focus on Him. This is why a lot of people celebrate the Sabbath on the days they're going to church, to gather with others and worship God. Sabbath teaches us that the world still moves without us, that our worth is more than the output of our lives, and that God is God and we are not. Now, let's talk about solitude, silence,

being alone with God, blocking out the noise to truly hear God. Because God often speaks to us with a whisper to our soul, and you can only hear a whisper when you are quiet and close. Solitude is actually what helps the Sabbath come alive. When we quiet our lives, put the phone down, block out the noise, stop producing, God begins to restore our souls. Jesus tells us, come to me and you will find rest. Psalm 46 verse 10 says, be still and know that I am God. Solitude, it's the practice of intentionally being alone with God away from noise. Intentional moments of solitude to slow us down enough to notice what's actually happening inside of us. Moments of prayer to speak and listen for God. It can be as simple as sitting in your car for 10 minutes on your lunch break, set a 10 minute timer on your phone, and just sit, eyes closed, in the quiet, listening for that nudge in your spirit. Oftentimes, how it looks for me when I do this is constant distractions come flooding in my mind. I'm sitting there praying simply, Jesus, I'm here, speak to me. to me, and usually the things that come to my mind are all of the things that I'm actually worrying about, which means I'm then not trusting God with those things. So what I do at the end of those 10 minutes is I usually take all the stuff that popped in my head

and I pray through that with God and say, God, clearly I am not trusting you in these areas of my life. And I resurrender them again. We have to know that Sabbath, solitude, these are gifts from God. They're not religious rules to control us. They are rhythms that we can build into our lives to refocus us back on Christ. Something very practical I've learned here about the Sabbath and times of solitude is this, good daily rhythms lead to good weekly rhythms. Meaning, if my days are chaos, don't expect an all of a sudden restful Sabbath day on the weekend. It won't happen. My body will instead go into shock mode because I've pushed it so hard for six days and then I just immediately stopped. No good. We need to build in good daily rhythms so that we can have good weekly rhythms. So what does your day to day look like? Do you work constantly? Or do you allow yourself to clock out and be present with your family, be present with your friends? Do you have time with God built into your day already? Reading scripture, listening for his voice, blocking out the noise.

Good daily rhythms will lead to good weekly rhythms. Sabbath, it creates intentional time for God. Solitude draws our attention to God and together they slow us down and create space for God to speak to us. So here are a few challenges for you this week. First, start implementing good daily rhythms into your life, daily time with Christ, stopping work, being present with your family. Build in moments, even just five minutes a day on your lunch break to practice solitude in prayer with God. Then the Sabbath challenge. Pick a day, set aside 24 hours if you're able to, 12 if you don't think you're able to do 24 and practice the Sabbath to stop work, rest, delight, and worship God. Maybe it's sundown on Saturday evening until sundown on Sunday evening. Put the phones away, remove the noise, sleep in, do things that will be life-giving for you. Meal with friends or family, play board games, put a puzzle together, build something with your bare hands, go for a walk, go to church, serve together, whatever it is. If it's life-giving, do that thing. The goal is to create an environment where Jesus can do his healing work in us, to know that Sabbath rhythms refuel our soul and we learn to rest in and listen for God,

to live more like Jesus, and because of that, become more like Jesus.