Hi friends! Ike and I have been traveling all over creation, which is why I haven’t been on here the last week. This weekend we went to the mountains with some friends and we were completely disconnected from the outside world. No internet, very little cell phone service, and hardly any clocks in our cabin. I admit there was a part of me that squirmed at the inability to check my e-mail every 5 seconds, but it was also wonderful to be fully present with people I love.

Speaking of time off, the weekend provided me the opportunity to reflect on a topic I’ve been wanting to write about for some time now. Those of you who read my blog with any regularity know that I am a big proponent of keeping the Sabbath. It’s not the sexiest topic in the world so please don’t tune out just because it doesn’t rev your engine. What I’m about to share with you has been really helpful to me in talking to others about God’s command to rest.

The insight came to me one day as I talked with a friend about her boyfriend, and her frustration that he had yet to propose (since then, he has–yay!). As I listened to her, it was clear that her impatience had less to do with him and more to do with her own physical and emotional exhaustion. She was working a ton and was super involved at church in addition to taking a class. When I asked her if she was setting time apart for the Sabbath each week, she said no and that she didn’t have time.

I have run into this objection a lot over the years. Whether someone is a student or a parent there just doesn’t seem to be enough time in the week to get everything done. Even though this is one of the Ten Commandments we’re talking about, it just doesn’t seem realistic to people. Take an ENTIRE DAY OFF? No way!

Well as I listened to my friend detail her schedule, and as I heard the fatigue in her voice, I decided to take a different approach to my whole Sabbath pitch.

The Sabbath is both a command and a gift from God. But one aspect I rarely considered before is that the Sabbath is also an act of trust. Consider, for a moment, how similar the objections to tithing and resting can be. Both employ a language of scarcity: “Money is too tight right now for me to tithe” or “I don’t have enough time in the week for the Sabbath.”

When pastors face these objections to tithing, they remind their church members that tithing is not simply about obedience but about trusting in God’s provision. What do you depend on more for security–your money, or God? Do you believe that God is able to make up the difference between your bills and your charitable giving? Ultimately, if you don’t tithe anything at all, even the tiniest bit (remember the widow’s mite!) you are making a statement about yourself or about God. Either you believe God can’t provide, or you simply don’t trust Him.

Our schedules are no different. God has asked us to set aside a day each week for Him. But if we don’t make time for rest and worship, if we think our schedules can’t afford the loss of those 24 hours, then we are choosing not to trust in Him. We are stating with our actions that God is not able to bless our faithfulness and use the remaining six days effectively. The schedule God has commanded is not enough in today’s fast paced world.

Granted, observing the Sabbath requires discipline during the other 6 days. It is a commitment to work hard for 6 days in order to rest on the seventh. But then again, the Sabbath is also a reminder that God is not part of this world’s rat race. God is not bound by tight schedules that value production volume over quality, skill and reflection. From that perspective, the Sabbath is not solely about trust but is also about getting back in touch with God’s way of doing things. 

So if you still resist observing the Sabbath, I hope you will reconsider it from the perspective of faith and trust. Why don’t you observe the Sabbath, and what does your choice say about God’s character and ability? In both money and time God is able to provide “immeasurably more than we ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:20) so let’s proclaim that truth with our lives!

As Christians, we live in a performance based culture that measures success according to how much you can cram into your life. The more you do, the more you’re doing, so to speak. This mentality has, by and large, infiltrated the church, and you don’t have to look beyond the church’s leadership to see that. Many pastors are over-worked and burned out, and their families suffer as a result.

This over-commitment is also the reason many pastors are more susceptible to moral failures. I recently heard about a study in which participants were given either a 2 digit number or a 7 digit number to remember, and then sent down a hallway where they were presented with two options: a sensible cup of fruit, or a delicious (but extremely unhealthy) piece of chocolate cake. The participants had to choose which one they would accept.

What the study found was this: The participants who were trying to remember the 7 digit number were TWICE as likely to choose the cake.

Why did this happen? According to the scientist who conducted the study, Professor Baba Shiv, “Those extra numbers took up valuable space in the brain — they were a ‘cognitive load’ — making it that much harder to resist a decadent dessert. In other words, willpower is so weak, and the prefrontal cortex is so overtaxed, that all it takes is five extra bits of information before the brain starts to give in to temptation.”

Jonah Lehrer, who authored the book How We Choose and included this study in it, also explained, “The part of our brain that is most reasonable, rational and do-the-right-thing is easily toppled by the pull of raw sensual appetite, the lure of sweet. Knowing something is the right thing to do takes work — brain work — and our brains aren’t always up to that.”

In other words, the more we have going on in our brains and in our lives, the more likely we are to make bad decisions. Or at the very least, it clogs our brains in a way that makes consistent, good decision-making difficult.

This study has very real implications for Christians, but especially for leaders. All Christians should bear in mind that if you cram your schedule instead of making time to rest (Ex. 20:8) and be still (Psalm 46:10), you’re more likely to make some bad decisions along the way. But Christians leaders should especially be mindful that their scheduling choices set an example for the rest of their church. When Christian leaders feed into the performance-based, frenetic pace of the surrounding culture, they risk causing their flock to stumble.

It is with all of this in mind that I was both pleased and blessed to hear about one Christian leader who is breaking the mold and setting a different kind of example with his actions. John Piper has recently decided to take a 6 month sabbatical from preaching, writing, tweeting, etc.–in other words, he’s taking a REAL sabbatical, not just a pseudo-sabbatical from one job so he can spend time working somewhere else.

On his blog he explained his thought process and I want to excerpt it here. I cannot express how much I respect him for this decision:

I asked the elders to consider this leave because of a growing sense that my soul, my marriage, my family, and my ministry-pattern need a reality check from the Holy Spirit. On the one hand, I love my Lord, my wife, my five children and their families first and foremost; and I love my work of preaching and writing and leading Bethlehem. I hope the Lord gives me at least five more years as the pastor for preaching and vision at Bethlehem.

Noël and I are rock solid in our commitment to each other, and there is no whiff of unfaithfulness on either side. But, as I told the elders, “rock solid” is not always an emotionally satisfying metaphor, especially to a woman. A rock is not the best image of a woman’s tender companion. In other words, the precious garden of my home needs tending. I want to say to Noël that she is precious to me in a way that, at this point in our 41-year pilgrimage, can be said best by stepping back for a season from virtually all public commitments.

While not every person is in a financial position to quit their job for 6 months and have it waiting for them when they return, the heart of Piper’s decision is an important one. We do not measure our schedules according to worldly standards of success. We measure them according to a God who says that rest is good and He designed us to have it. Does your schedule reflect this truth?

When it comes to giving our money to the church, my husband and I have tried to abide by two basic principles: 1) Give generously on a consistent basis, and 2) Budget our money in a way that allows us to be generous at unexpected times. For instance, say that a family in the church has an urgent financial need. We don’t want every penny to be so accounted for at the beginning of each month that we’re unable to help them. We want to have the freedom to give if such a need arises.

Granted, we don’t have a lot of money. Many of you reading this may not either. But these two principles of generosity can apply to more than just money. They can, for instance, apply to our time as well. While a lot of Christians do pretty well on the first principle–giving of their time to the church–I’m not sure many of us allow enough breathing room for those unexpected needs. Sure, if the need is urgent enough we’ll skip Bible study or miss work, but in doing so we’re only making life more hectic. We’re adding to the chaos instead of drawing from an overflow.

This is something I’ve come to reflect on a lot as I’ve cut down on my schedule these past few months. When someone has really needed me, I can give of my time freely without having to rework a thousand tiny details. But even more importantly, I can be totally present with others. I’m not tired or stressed so I can be more attentive and caring. My patience is less easily tested and I can have the clarity of mind to channel the Holy Spirit in my words, rather than speak out of the jumbled mess in my brain.

Life’s unexpected needs and emergencies don’t always occur on a schedule, so we need to account for that in the way we plan our days. And if an emergency doesn’t come up, then that’s time you can spend with God, friends, or family just allowing yourself to rest. Resting itself is an investment in the quality of your time at work and with others.

So be generous with your time, but not so generous that you stop being generous. That sentence makes me laugh to look at it, but that’s exactly what I mean to say. We must be wise, discerning and selective with the precious few hours that God gives us each day. Otherwise, our own plans for generosity might end up conflicting with God’s.

For a great passage on this, check out Luke 10:38-42. When it comes to time management, are you a Martha or a Mary? Most of us are Martha’s and we oddly pride ourselves in that fact, but Jesus doesn’t. Busy does not equal better. Sometimes busy means little more than distracted and ineffective.

The other day I was having lunch with one of my good friends and she asked me how I was doing. I smiled and told her, “I’m actually doing really well! In fact, this is probably the happiest I’ve ever been!” No sooner did those words escape my lips than my smile changed into a frown of concern as I exclaimed, “I hope it’s not because I’m married!”

I know I’m probably the first woman in the history of the world to utter that phrase. But the idea that getting married would suddenly impact my happiness so profoundly is kind of disturbing to me. If you’d read my blog for any amount of time, you know that idea goes against a lot of what I believe theologically. No person or event should satisfy us in the way that God does. If my quality of life is dramatically improved as a result of marriage, is that an indicator of some unseen idol in my life? Have I been deluding myself all along?

Now obviously it’s a good thing to be married. And this should be a happy time in my life. I should be living it up, as a number of my single friends have reminded me. But in all honesty as much as I do love being married, I don’t think that’s the ultimate source of my extreme happiness. The reason things have been so good lately is that right about the time I got married, I also quit almost everything I was involved with.

Ever since I was in high school I have been over-committed. I’ve been leading too many things for way too long, and I literally haven’t taken a season for myself in 10 years. I think it all culminated this past year when I was a campus minister leading two small groups in 2 different cities and planning a wedding. I was pouring myself out without allowing any time to fill myself up, and I hit a wall. If my life was a line graph, you would have seen a steady decline of spiritual output in 2008-2009, which ultimately ended in a crash. It’s like my spiritual life was mirroring the economy.

So I decided it was time to do some pruning. I quite my job, quit leading my small groups, quit discipling, quit everything. I started from square one. I made up my mind to have very few commitments, so I joined a small group, took on a less intense servant role at my church, and most importantly carved out a very strict Sabbath.

And let me tell you, it has been awesome. The last several years of my life have been defined by a kind of spiritual winter. It’s not that I couldn’t ever feel God, but I wasn’t really growing either. I felt dormant. This is the first time in years that I’ve begun to see the first little signs of spring popping up. I see touches of green everywhere.

It’s funny because this is so unlike me. I am over-committed girl. I tend to cram as much into my day as possible. In my mind, quantity equals effectiveness. The more I do the more I get done. The problem is that the quality was going down the tubes. It’s kind of like my husband’s insistence that he doesn’t need sleep before an exam. He studies all through the night because he thinks that the more time he spends studying, the more he’ll know for the test. In reality, studies show that a good night’s rest is actually more effective than cramming. If your brain is too tired to process the info, the info is worthless.

It’s the same for us spiritually. If our minds and bodies are too tired to process and live out the faith we profess, then we won’t be good for much at all. Plus, whenever I’m busy the first thing I usually cut out is my quiet time. Martin Luther once said that he had to spend 4 hours in prayer each morning BECAUSE he was so busy, and he was exactly right. The more I do, the MORE I need God to sustain me. It’s irrational that I would do the opposite.

So as someone who has crawled out from under the pile of over-commitment and seen the light of day, I have to tell you that it looks pretty good. I’m not as stressed, the quality of everything I do is better, and most importantly I’m recovering my intimacy with God. Don’t pressure yourself to do more than you should. Not only will the quality of your output suffer, but your witness will too. You’ll become tired, grumpy, and lacking in patience. The Gospel deserves better, so take care of yourself. It’s an investment in the Kingdom.

As I have mentioned in several posts before, I am currently in the throes of planning a wedding. It’s fun, but it’s also kind of insane. I never thought it was possible to put this much time and energy into an event that will last only a few hours.

And while the planning process began in excitement and anticipation, it has since taken on a slightly different tone. Rather than simply enjoy the process, I’ve found myself feeling stressed and anxious about it. I’m thinking about wedding details all the time, and I’m almost completely consumed by it. As a result, I’ve been on edge and easily irritated, less patient and more quick to snap at my fiancé.

The reason for this change is two-fold, the first being a loss of focus. As soon as I make this wedding about me and not about God, then the pressure is on. Suddenly I’m bound by the expectations of others, desiring to put on a wedding that’s impressive and extravagant. It must be better than everyone else’s wedding. And if it’s not perfect, all will be ruined.

That is the place that my mind will go if I let it. That is what happens when I forget Christ.

But the second reason I’ve been so on edge is that I haven’t rested from it. I’m essentially planning the wedding all the time. When I’m not physically  working on the wedding I’m still thinking about it.

And therein lies the real problem–it’s not enough to rest your body. You must also be engaging in a Sabbath of the mind.

I first learned this lesson in my work as a minister. I found myself coming home and telling my roommates or fiancé about the things that had frustrated me that day or the various issues with which I was struggling. I was away from work, but I was still at work in spirit. My mind was constantly spinning as I thought about my ministry, worried about my ministry, and wracked my brain about ministry.

After this pattern went on long enough I began to burn out. I was tired all the time and I was short with my students. My motivation dwindled as my passion was stamped out by fatigue. And at first I was totally puzzled by this. Why wasn’t I feeling rested and restored by my down time?

The reason is that I wasn’t actually resting. My body may have stopped working, but my mind was still in work mode. I may have appeared to be relaxing, but everything else about my orientation was focused on the job.

That is why it is crucial that you give your body AND your mind a weekly Sabbath. What’s more, you need to guard your thought life on a DAILY basis when you are away from work. This can be done in a number of practical ways: Don’t bring your work home with you. When you’re with your family and friends, avoid talking about the problems at work, the people you dislike, and the issues you’re worried about. Find hobbies or activities that you enjoy and can help you to keep your mind off of work.

Right now, this means that I spend intentional time with my fiancé in which we are NOT talking about the wedding.  We need to allow our minds the time to refocus and meditate on the peace that we have in Christ and the greater meaning for this upcoming event in our lives. In doing so, we will free ourselves to actually enjoy the process, one another, and God. When we intentionally allow ourselves to rest, we liberate ourselves from the rat race that ensnares our souls, so be diligent to guard your mind. It needs a break too.