Before the pandemic, practicing the Sabbath was a centerpiece in my life.
If you’re unfamiliar with the rhythm, the Sabbath is a day of rest traditionally observed at the end of the week. It is one whole day—twenty-four hours within a 168-hour week—reserved for restoration, delight, and learning to cease.
But my Sabbath rhythm was the first thing to come undone when the world shut down. I knew I needed it more than ever, but I was turning to my phone for answers and hope, so how could I possibly take a break? I convinced myself that if I unplugged, something crucial would happen, and I would miss it.
When I started the unplugged hours on my thirty-third birthday, returning to my regular Sabbath practice came with it. Since 2021, I’ve been practicing the Sabbath from Friday night to Saturday night of each work. It’s a 24-hour period where I rest, play, enjoy, and savor. No work, emails, deadlines, or urgency.
These days, I’m a student of the Sabbath, and I’m always learning new things—about myself, about the nature of a God who built rest into his blueprint, and about how sometimes a good gift is right in front of us, but we have to take hold of it.
Here are some of the most golden and enduring lessons I’ve learned from practicing the sabbath:
Rest is Holy But Hard.
Taking a break is hard. There are some Sabbaths that I float into joyfully- rejoicing for the chance to power down and take a break. But there are plenty of other Sabbaths I want to resist and plug-in just to get ahead because maybe the week didn’t unfold as planned, or I’m in a hectic season.
All the same, I take a break.
I love my work. I could do it 24/7, and I realize the privilege of being able to say that. However, the more significant issue is when I have to keep working or things will stop moving. That makes me too big and God too small.
In his book The Sabbath, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes, “Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else.” I think that’s the worthiest reminder we could have for a twenty-four-hour reset—the world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else.
I’m Not Holding The World Together.
I hate to be the bearer of this news, but someone has to say it: you and I are not holding the world together. We are not in control. We are not hoisting any kind of globe on our shoulders, though it feels like it at times. Sabbath has been my continual reminder to hand over the keys and repeat to myself: You can take a break. You are not responsible for keeping everything afloat.
Sabbath is my way of saying, “God, you’re bigger than me. Your ways are higher than mine. Therefore, I’m taking a break and releasing everything I’m responsible for stewarding well into your hands.”
I wrote in The Unplugged Hours, “We tend to think that if we leave the race for just a moment, we’ll lose our footing and be unable to keep up. That’s the fear that keeps most of us going full-speed at all hours of the day. But when we leave the race to embrace rest, we step back into the bustle with new strength. Otherworldly strength. We run even better and with a completely different cadence—one rooted in deep rest rather than deep striving.”
Your Body Responds to Rhythms.
This one observation has been a wild discovery for me. Every Friday, around quitting time, I notice that my body starts to get sleepy and loose. I start yawning, and there’s this weird kind of peace that overtakes me, almost like something in my spirit is saying to me, “We made it. Good job. Time for a break.”
After years of practicing it nearly every Friday, my body is responding to the rhythm of Sabbath. My body expects the break, so I give it. Like clockwork, it settles in. It is a reminder to me that Sabbath isn’t just a mental practice or a spiritual one—it’s physical. Our bodies respond to rest. They love and savor rest. Rest is one of the ways we can honor our bodies and give them what they need.
“We become different versions of ourselves when we clear the space to rest and honor the truth that empty cups need to be refilled by sources bigger than themselves. Only then can they serve their true purpose without wearing out.”
The Key Word Is “Practice.”
I think many of us hold back from practicing the sabbath because there’s a lot of rigidity to the rules of the Sabbath. One person will tell you one thing, and another scholar will propose something else.
But what if we just decided to practice? We practice prayer. We practice gratitude. Why not practice the sabbath? Even if you can’t hop right into a 24-hour sabbath, could you practice a sabbath for three hours on a Saturday? Can you show up wobbly and a little afraid? Can you take social media off your phone for the weekend? Or decide not to check emails one day a week?
What do you even do with a sabbath? I included this piece about sabbath in the book:
“As a family, we had to ask ourselves, “What are the sparks that restore us and bring us back to life after a long week?” We practice those things—trips to the local farmer’s market, a slower pace, spontaneous decisions, extra coffee, concerts, park dates, and presence. Presence, along with fostering a deep appreciation for this life we’re living, has become the deep, thudding heartbeat of our Sabbath.”
I “practice” the sabbath every week. And it is rather liberating. But I’m a student in the practice, which means I don’t always feel like practicing, and there are some weeks where I want to skip altogether. But I dig in. And I press for the gold that comes from self-discipline. And there hasn’t been a single sabbath that I’ve walked out of not feeling grateful for the practice.
Rest IS Productive.
Every few months, and always before a road trip, my husband takes our Toyota to the dealership to get a tune-up. He has the tires checked and the oil changed. He realizes that cars, like a lot of other things, need frequent maintenance. Trust me, without this man, that car would never get a tune-up, and I’d be broken down on the side of the road.
Cars need tune-ups. And we need tune-ups. We need moments to pause, look over our systems and inner worlds, and ensure things are running smoothly.
But how can we do a tune-up if we’re never powered down?
If we’re always moving?
If we view slowing down to be unproductive or not worth our time?
Through Sabbath, I’ve learned that rest is productive and necessary. Powering down is productive and necessary. Taking breaks is necessary and productive. Doing nothing at all for a moment or two is necessary and productive.
If we never pump the brakes and look under the hood, we never figure out what’s not working, what needs fixing, or what’s beautifully growing within us right on time.
“You don’t have to be afraid to rest. Rest isn’t weakness—it’s the secret to so much strength you’ve yet to tap into. You can take the break. Cease striving.. Take the weight of the world off your shoulders. No one is asking you to hold it. So go ahead—let that weight roll off you for good.”
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