We weren't made to run 24/7
In 2013, a 31-year-old Japanese journalist named Miwa Sado was found dead in her bed, still clutching her phone. Investigators concluded she had died from overwork after logging about 159 hours of overtime in a single month. Japan even has a word for it: karoshi, death from overwork. Most of us won't go that far, but many of us live tense, always-on lives.
Studies suggest our devices interrupt us about 30 times an hour, and each interruption can take more than 20 minutes to recover from. We check scores and headlines even in church. Pastor Eric learned this on his own sabbatical. Visiting another church, he caught himself wanting to pick up trash instead of simply sitting and worshiping. Now his staff puts their devices away during meetings.
Jesus' invitation is for exactly this kind of person: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls" (Matthew 11:28–29). Notice the word learn. Rest is something we have to learn.
Rest was God's idea from the beginning
Some people dismiss the Sabbath as an Old Testament rule. But it's the only one of the Ten Commandments people brag about breaking. Nobody boasts that they lied or stole this week, yet plenty of people — pastors included — boast that they never take a day off. Jesus said He came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.
The Sabbath came before the law of Moses. "On the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day... and God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it" (Genesis 2:2–3). It also came before sin entered the world. Rest is part of God's original design for human flourishing.
God doesn't rest because He's tired; He never grows weary. Rest isn't a response to weakness but part of His wholeness. And notice what Adam did first. He was created on the sixth day, so his first full day of life was the Sabbath. Before he ever worked, he rested in God's presence. We tend to work toward rest. In the kingdom of God, we work from rest.
The Hebrew word shabbat means to stop, the way an officer stops traffic so you can turn. A Sabbath is 24 hours set apart for God that recalibrates your soul to live from His rest all week — like defragmenting a hard drive, or rolling the trash cans down the driveway so they can be emptied.
A Sabbath isn't just a day off
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God" (Exodus 20:8–10). Holy means set apart. You can take a day off without ever having a Sabbath. If all you do is stop working, you've taken a day off. When you set the time apart for God, you enter rest.
Pastor Eric admits he has been convicted about this himself: taking time off but not really giving it to the Lord. It's like a date night spent staring at your phone. Intimacy grows when you put the devices away and look each other in the eye, and the same is true with God.
The Ten Commandments build in order of importance, and "keep the Sabbath" comes before murder, adultery, lying or coveting. It also gets far more explanation than "thou shalt not kill." Why? Because when we don't find our rest in God, we go looking for it elsewhere: overeating, overdrinking, gambling, overworking — even burning out on church work. We don't find rest by doing. We find it by being still and knowing that He is God (Psalm 46:10).
The Sabbath isn't a reward for getting everything done; your work will never be finished. It interrupts work that will never be finished. In seminary, Pastor Eric had a Greek test every Monday at 8 a.m. When his roommate challenged him to keep the Sabbath anyway, he took Sunday off — church, a meal with friends, the beach — then got up early Monday to study. He did better than when he had studied seven days a week.
Sabbath is about trust and freedom
For 430 years the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, making bricks without rest. When God brought them out, one of the first things He taught them was how to stop. "And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 5:15). Slaves can't Sabbath; free people can. Pharaoh's message was always more bricks — your worth is what you produce. God's message is: you belong to Me, so rest. If you can't stop, ask whether you've become a slave to your image or to other people's expectations.
In the wilderness God provided manna every day for forty years. Anything hoarded overnight spoiled — except on the sixth day, when they gathered twice as much and it stayed fresh through the Sabbath. God can multiply your time and energy when you honor Him with it, just as He does with your finances when you tithe. Can you trust Him enough to stop while things remain unfinished?
Others have. Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut kept the Sabbath throughout the 2000 presidential campaign. Truett Cathy built Chick-fil-A with every Sunday closed, reasoning that if it took seven days to make a living with a restaurant, he should be in another line of work. Sabbath is a weekly declaration that God is God and you are not.
Jesus, Lord of the Sabbath
The religious leaders of Jesus' day turned the Sabbath into a burden. They criticized His disciples for picking grain and attacked Him for healing a woman who had been bent over for eighteen years. Jesus answered, "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath" (Mark 2:27–28). And notice: in many of His Sabbath healings, Jesus went to the person rather than waiting for them to come to Him. The Sabbath has always been about restoration — of body, soul and relationships.
There's a beautiful detail in Genesis. Each of the six days of creation ends with "the evening and the morning." The seventh day never does. It has no ending, because God's rest is eternal. "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God" (Hebrews 4:9). When we keep a Sabbath, we get a taste of the eternity we were made for. As one Jewish man put it, we don't keep the Sabbath; the Sabbath keeps us.
What a Sabbath can look like
This isn't a new set of rules, just five suggestions:
1. Stop. Choose a 24-hour period — Sunday works well for many families. Put the phone away except for emergencies. Trust God with what's unfinished. Spend time with your family, enjoy a good meal, take a nap.
2. Worship. On the Sabbath, God isn't an assignment; He's a delight. "Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart" (Psalm 37:4).
3. Gather. Don't forsake meeting together (Hebrews 10:25). Church and a small group give you people who encourage you and ask how you're really doing.
4. Delight. Do what restores you. If you work with your hands all week, read a book or listen to music. If you work with your mind, get your hands in a garden.
5. Trust. Believe that God can do more with your six days than you can do with seven. The world doesn't depend on you — Pastor Eric discovered during his sabbatical that the church did just fine without him.
Pick a day. Join a small group. Give God the first of your time, and watch what He does. Then walk back into your week working from His rest instead of spending your whole life working for it.
Key Scriptures
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work.
And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
Be still, and know that I am God.
There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
Questions to Reflect On
- When was the last time you truly stopped for 24 hours? What made it hard?
- What do you reach for when you're restless — food, screens, work, something else?
- Is there an area where you're still living by Egypt's message — that your worth is what you produce?
- What would a Sabbath look like for your household this week? Pick a day and one practice to start with.
Wrestling with this? You don’t have to do it alone.
Our pastors would love to pray with you, answer your questions, or just listen.
