For the most part, we are good at talking about getting rest and needing rest, but we are not that good at actually getting the rest we need.

We starve ourselves of rest in two ways: We don’t sleep enough and we don’t rest from our work like we should.

Some say they need eight hours of sleep a night; others say they don’t need to sleep more than a few hours a night.

But all sleep is not rest. Many people turn sleep into a serious workout. Some snore like thunder. Some stop breathing as if they keep dipping below the surface of the water.

Those people have to wear a splint or put on a breathing machine. From what I understand, if you didn’t sleep all that well before, your quality of rest plummets even more with those apparatuses. The only good thing is that you will be sure to keep breathing.

But maybe breathing is over-rated.

When we brought our daughter home from the hospital for the first time, we had her sleeping in a bassinet beside our bed. I’m usually a sound sleeper but Karlie breathed so erratically that first night, I kept waking up to see if she was ok.

In the morning, I said to Lily, “She’s got to learn to breathe on her own. She’ll either figure it out or not, but she’s got to do it in her own bedroom, because I can’t sleep with her here!”

That was 26 plus years ago … Karlie figured it out.

But that’s only part of the rest we need. We need rest from our regular work. The Bible says we should take a Sabbath each week: one in seven.

However, with work, activities in the evenings, and shopping available seven days a week, it’s hard to take that rest. There is always some work to do, always somewhere to be, always something we need to obtain.

We say we take a day off but the truth comes out when we are exhausted at the end of the weekend, when we don’t have the energy we need to do all that we want to do, or when we find ourselves too tired to be as productive as we should be.

I’m a pastor. I should be a promoter of this rest, since it’s God’s idea and He actually made it one of His commands to us. But sadly, I end up working on my day off like most other people.

The key to this rest we need is not to do nothing. Rather, we are to do something we enjoy, something that we look forward to, something that invigorates us.

For me that might be a day of playing sports, watching some professional sports and chowing down on some hot wings with a glass of Dr. Pepper to wash them all down.

For someone else it might be completely different. But the end result should be that I feel rested and ready to get back to work the next day, that I’ve acknowledged God and given Him thanks.

This coming Monday, I’m going to get serious about taking a Sabbath.

Here’s the thing: It seems like the easiest one of God’s commands to ignore or excuse. In the course of a week it can slide by without any harmful side effects. But an unattended Sabbath can lead to serious health and relational complications. Don’t cheat yourself or God on your Sabbath; get serious about taking it.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What makes taking a Sabbath difficult for you? Leave your comment below.