We Weren’t Made for Rest, Rest was Made for Us

A person sitting at the end of a wooden dock on a still mountain lake, framed by tall peaks.

And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

Mark 2:27

Whether you’re a Christian or not, listen up. If you don’t find some kind of rhythm of rest in your life, you’re going to damage your soul, your relationships, and your life.

There’s this constant theme that keeps coming up in my life for the better part of a year. Namely, this theme of rest. I’ve read books, had conversations with numerous people–seeing the effects of hurry in their life, and I have experienced the negative effects of hurry on my own.

Sabbath is “Shabbat,” in Hebrew. Shabbat literally means to stop, to cease, or to keep. In America, Shabbat means “lazy.” You don’t stop. You don’t rest. Resting is for losers and suckers. “You can rest when you die.”

Just this morning, I made myself read my Bible. I have a long to-do list today and I really just wanted to get started on it but felt that nudge to begin my day with the Bible. I randomly opened it and the first page I came to was in Isaiah. Here are the verses that I highlighted some time ago that immediately leaped off the page.

If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth.

Isaiah 58:13-14

There’s a lot to unpack in those verses. I’m not going to do a commentary on them right now. The fact is, so often, I dishonor God by not honoring the Sabbath. I also short circuit the benefits of honoring the Sabbath like delight and prosperity. Not prosperity in a financial sense, but more in terms of God’s favor and strong support.

Eight months ago I hit a wall mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I will spare you all the details, but let’s just put it this way–my failure to adhere to the rhythm of Sabbath rest for the last 15 years caused me to burn out. I was crispy.

The reality is, I’m still recovering and I might never fully recover. Here’s a picture of what burnout may look like.

  • Irritability
  • Pessimism/Sarcasm
  • Self-pity
  • Ingratitude/Entitlement
  • Damage to relationships
  • Emotional constipation
  • Joylessness
  • Anxiety
  • Resentment
  • Bitterness
  • Sporadic manic behaviors

Okay, I’m going to stop listing things because I can probably double the size of that list. If I can be candid with you, I realized there was a major problem when the most exciting part of my day consisted of drinking a couple glasses of wine each evening before bed while watching Netflix.

Can I be honest with you again? That’s still one of the most exciting parts of my day. How does a person get there? How do we get to a place like that? I think it looks different for everyone. However, one way you simply get there is by NEVER stopping. As Zach Eswine, a pastor of a church in the midwest once put it, “We want to do things famously and fast.”

I like to think of the road to burnout as being analogous to this–continuing to drive your car for weeks, months, or years with the check engine light on. Would you do that to your car? Maybe for a week or two. But would you try to drive it for 10, 15, 20, or more years like that? What’s going to happen to that car?

Do you know that you’re not a machine? Do you know that you’re not just a physical body? Do you know that you HAVE to rest? Here are the LIES I’ve listened to over the years–from myself and others, that made me ignore my soul’s check engine light.

“People will think more highly of you if you’re always productive and busy.”

“You need to make this thing happen, despite your plate load or everything that’s going on in life.”

“If you stop now, you’re a failure.”

“You’re too young to be tired. Talk to me when you’re at least in your 40s.”

“There’s too much work to be done. You don’t have time to rest.”

I could keep on going with that list as well. Being busy is a badge of honor in our culture. But what are the effects of our hurried lives? What has it produced? Let me give you another long list.

  • Heart disease, cancer, anxiety disorders, depression, suicide, etc.
  • Less love for one another.
  • Mid-life crises
  • Divorce and adultery
  • Addictions
  • Rampant use of pornography
  • Decreased production/diminishing returns
  • Pessimism

And so on. We’ve got to be radical about this stuff. Nobody is going to take better care of you than yourself. You have to learn to tell people NO. If you allow people to, they will push you and ask of you until you break, and then you’ll be of no use to yourself or anybody.

After my own personal experience, speaking with others over the years, and reading numerous books on the topic, I’m convinced that one of the biggest threats to our faith (for those who are Christians) is constant busyness, rush, and hurry. I don’t think it’s going to be some moral or epic failure that destroys your faith or marriage. I think it’s going to be a failure to eliminate hurry.

The fruit of hurry is probably some type of substance abuse, use of pornography, adultery, or some other moral failure. Those failures will be what you see on the surface, but it was really the failure to eliminate hurry in your life that led to those outward sins.

The Sabbath is for us. It was made for us. God has created us to need rest. Jesus himself rested often. He was also the most productive person that ever lived. I’m still learning how to rest, but step one was recognizing my problem. You can’t fight an enemy you don’t know exists. I just encourage you to examine your life and see how lack of rest may be impacting you in ways you didn’t even know.