|
We noted last week that one blessing that comes from regular periods of Sabbath rest is a sense of significance and meaning. It gives us time and space to ask why we are doing what we are doing, and whom it is really for.
A second benefit of Sabbath rest is the opportunity it gives to reconnect with our values. Life can become so busy that we lose sight of the standards that we should be operating by. "We are daily the objects of a bombardment of messages competing for our loyalties and labors," writes Gordon MacDonald. "We are pushed and pulled in a thousand different directions, asked to make decisions and value judgments, to invest our resources and our time" (p. 167). In pressure situations like this we can end up slaves to the demands of others and lose contact with our inner radar system - our inner values. If we are not careful, we can find ourselves drifting into a lifestyle at odds with our deepest beliefs.
That's what makes Sabbath rest so helpful. It gives us space to think about the question, "By what standards of truth am I making my choices and decisions?" Gordon MacDonald believes that "God meant his people to take a day in each week in which this question was firmly dealt with" (p. 169). He points out how God gave Israel in the Old Testament a series of feasts and anniversaries by which they were constantly reminded of their past and challenged in their present. These, he says, served the purpose of "recalibrating the spirit" of God's people. And that is what our Sabbath rest needs to do. It is a time for refreshing our belief in and commitment to Christ. MacDonald says that Sabbath rest in his own life "is a fine tuning of my inner navigational instruments so that I can make my way through the world for another week" (p. 169). How many moral collapses would have been avoided if people took time to "recalibrate their spirits" in rest?
Then thirdly, Gordon MacDonald sees Sabbath rest as an opportunity to refine our sense of mission. True resting looks backwards to review what we have done; it looks at the present to assess the values governing what we do now; and it also looks forwards to target our energies for the future. "When we rest in the biblical sense," MacDonald writes, "we affirm our intentions to pursue a Christ-centred tomorrow. We ponder where we are headed in the coming week, month, or year. We define our intentions and make our dedications" (p. 169).
Jesus often rested in this sense. He regularly withdrew from people to meet with his Father, and in this way kept a heavenly perspective on his earthly mission. "No wonder," writes MacDonald, "he met every encounter with a fresh burst of wisdom. No wonder he had ample courage not to fight back, not to defend himself. His spirit was always rested, his private world ordered. Without this kind of rest our private world will always be strained and disordered" (p. 169).
How insightful and helpful this is. A well ordered existence is more than having timetables and strategies for action well sorted out. It's about having our inner world well tuned. It's about knowing why we exist, what we believe, and what we have been given to do. And that's what a Sabbath rest can help us achieve. "The world and the church need genuinely rested Christians," says MacDonald: "Christians who are regularly refreshed by true Sabbath rest, not just leisure or time off. When a godly rest is achieved, you will see just how tough and resilient Christians can actually be" (p. 175).