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The Father's Business Podcast
The Father's Business Podcast
Strength to Equal Your Days-Finding God-Sized Sabbath Rest
When was the last time you truly rested? Not just collapsed from exhaustion, but experienced the kind of deep, soul-nourishing rest that leaves you transformed and strengthened?
In this enlightening episode, we dive deep into the concept of "God-sized rest" and how it differs dramatically from our cultural understanding of taking a break. Exploring both Hebrew words for rest found in Scripture, we discover that biblical rest isn't about recovery or catching up on sleep. It's about savoring God's presence, delighting in His creation, and finding security in His faithfulness. It's not passive withdrawal but active engagement with the source of our peace.
Join us for this transformative discussion about finding the strength to equal your days through God-sized Sabbath rest. Your understanding of both rest and strength may never be the same.
The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God. I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
Speaker 2:And I am Kimberly Roddy. Welcome to the Father's Business podcast. We are so glad that you've joined us. Welcome everyone to our podcast.
Speaker 2:Today we are going through a series with some topics from our latest devotional called Strength to Equal your Days. So today's episode is going to flip the script a little bit. So what if the strength we need to equal our days doesn't come from doing more or pushing harder or fighting stronger, but what if it comes from learning to rest? I think that's a really important question and I think it's something we really need to consider. So today we're going to talk about rest and what is rest and what is God-sized rest? I think when we think about rest, I know I think about vacation. I think about sitting by the beach. Sitting on the beach by the water, maybe a few moments of quiet, maybe a good nap. But in Scripture, rest isn't described as being lazy or taking a break in that kind of way or, you know, just chilling out. It's the kind of rest that restores your soul. It's the kind of rest that silences the enemy. It's the kind of rest that centers your identity.
Speaker 1:You're absolutely right, kimberly, I'm with you when you tell someone they need to rest. You think of the beach. I think of a nap on my couch with my cat, where no one needs anything from me. That's like the most glorious feeling in the world I can turn my phone off, everyone can fend for themselves. I am off duty and that is a type of rest that we do need. But that's not what the word rest is talked about in the Bible.
Speaker 1:There's kind of two main Hebrew words that are used for rest in the Bible. One I think a lot of us are familiar with is where we get the word Sabbath from. That was in Genesis 2-2, when it says that God rested from all of his labor. And I think through the years we've all kind of gotten our own definition of what we think Sabbath means and we're going to get into some of that as we talk today.
Speaker 1:But the other word for rest is found a little bit later in Genesis, in the story of Noah, where it talks about how the ark came to rest. And I love the picture of both of those types of words, because one is more about ceasing from labor, enjoying, delighting, savoring, and then the other word, nuah, which is found in the story of Noah, is more about finality, victory, security, salvation. If you think about it, they'd been on that boat and the earth was covered in water for 40 days and 40 nights, and then the ark comes to rest on dry ground and just that feeling that you would have after all of that time, wondering are we ever going to see land again, or is this, this is it? We're on a boat for the rest of our lives with a bunch of animals. So there's beautiful themes of rest throughout the Bible and it can be a place where we find strength to equal our days.
Speaker 2:I think about Psalm 62, 1, which says truly, my soul finds rest in God. My salvation comes from Him. So rest isn't about just recovery. It's not about recovering from weariness or tiredness. It's more about living from a place of that strength that can only come from God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think if you have not read, there's a book called Sabbath by Dan Allender that I would highly recommend, because he kind of explores this idea that a lot of us think that Sabbath is just about not working and not doing any extra activity on that day to rest.
Speaker 1:And you see some of that even in modern Orthodox Jewish culture. There are so many laws and rules that they've added to say this is what you can and cannot do on the Sabbath, and even Jesus kind of bumped up against that with the Pharisees in the New Testament. It's an ox in the ditch situation we often talk about when Jesus asked them if my ox falls over in the ditch, am I not going to help save my ox just because it's the Sabbath? But the whole idea of Dan Allender's book is getting back to that question, Kimberly, that I think that we need to ask is what did God do on the seventh day? It said he rested, but it doesn't say a whole lot more than that. So what do you think God was up to on the seventh day?
Speaker 2:I really like that question because if rest isn't about recovery, then it's got to be more than that, because it's what we're seeing is that God rested right Genesis 2, 2, by the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing. On the seventh day he rested from all of his work. There's something in there about like Sabbath isn't, it's not. You're talking about this just a minute ago with Orthodox Jews and you really look at their culture Like it's not an obligation, it's more of an act of trust, like I think what God knew I mean I don't know what God knew, but by the fact in Genesis 2 that we see that God rested, it must have meant that he had everything, that he was holding everything together that he could. You talked about the ark earlier landing on solid ground and resting Like there's a sense of peace there. So he rested from his work. So I think there is something more there to understand. What do you think about that word there with God?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean because God doesn't need to sleep. God neither sleeps nor slumbers, so it's not. He was exhausted from His labor, so he had to recover. And so I think, on one level, I think he did it as a model for us. I think that's why it's included in Scripture, to show us that there should be a rhythm to our life where there is a time and a season to be doing the labor and the work and then there's a time to kind of sit back.
Speaker 1:But I think of him looking over all that he created and saying it was good, because he did that several times throughout the creation story.
Speaker 1:So I in my mind, I imagine that that seventh day was a time for him to kind of rejoice over all the things, delight, I mean, think of all the creations that he has made, not only man and woman, but all the animals and all the plants and just all the life that he has created in this creation story.
Speaker 1:And now he kind of gets to sit back like a proud parent and just watch and enjoy it all and delight over it. And so I do think there is this element of Sabbath not being about what we can and cannot do, because we need to physically rest, but it's about making it a practice in our life to stop and savor and enjoy and delight in and for us to worship. Because if I am resting, part of what I'm saying is God, you're God and I'm not. And that is a form of worship, to say I'm going to surrender part of my time, whether that be a day, a week or a season, or there's several different ways you can Sabbath, or even it's an hour a day. You get to choose how and when you want to Sabbath. What I'm doing is I'm surrendering my rights to what I'm going to do with my time so that I can spend time connecting with you, delighting in you, enjoying you in that time.
Speaker 2:Like you said, I don't really imagine that God was sleeping, like he doesn't need to sleep, but he was savoring and enjoying his creation. You were alluding to that and I do think that that is part of worship, and oftentimes we don't. We think of that as worship, but we don't talk about it a lot. If you're sitting out enjoying creation, I can begin to worship God, right, I can worship God by enjoying watching the birds or watching the water or watching the trees blow, and I was up in the mountains this past weekend and there was beautiful and the sunset was gorgeous and it was windy and just worshiping, watching God's creation, and I imagine that's part of what was happening. It was, like you said, it was a choice. He chose to rest and savor in what he had done, because I don't think that Sabbath isn't about catching up on sleep, which is kind of where our culture takes it today, like a weekend's time to catch up, right.
Speaker 2:But, it was really about catching up with God, slowing down enough to enjoy what God has done, enjoy who God is and even enjoy who we're becoming because of our relationship with God.
Speaker 1:I agree with you, kimberly. It's the kind of rest that feeds our spirit and our soul and our body. It's not inactivity but it's holy intention. It's about stopping to say God, you're good, what you've made is good, whether it's you up in the mountains or looking out at a sunset or any type of activity we do. It doesn't even have to just be nature. Whatever it is that rejuvenates you.
Speaker 1:For some people that may be cooking, for some people that may be playing a musical instrument this is where we get kind of back to this conversation we have around rock journey, which is what makes your spirit come alive. Is it worship music? What are the things that make you feel alive? For me, it's sitting on a swing, and so a lot of the times when I have said, okay, god, I'm putting aside this time to Sabbath with you. My favorite place to go is to a park that has a swing in it and sitting on the swing and just enjoying his presence. It's not about just stopping productivity, it's about also engaging with him and enjoying his presence, and so it's not a reward for finishing off the hard labor of the week, but it's a rhythm that we kind of need to get ourselves into where we're like.
Speaker 1:Okay, how, in this fast-paced world, am I slowing it down to really be present in the moment, to savor who God is for me, who I am in Him, what he has created and also acknowledge? He delights to be with me in the things that bring me joy. He delights to be with me when I sit on the swing. He delights to be with you, kimberly, at the beach. He delights to be with people who enjoy baking. He's right there in the kitchen with you. So how do you invite the delight of who God is into the places where you find places to restore your spirit, soul and body?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that is like we said earlier, we're kind of flipping the script on how we think about rest and how we think about Sabbaths and this concept, because I think, I mean, I don't I can only speak for American Christianity, but I think American Christianity over the last few years and its culture has had a more strict idea of one of the commandments of remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think I mean you and I both are going to agree that that commandment is important. It is still a commandment and yet how is it lived out? We grew up in different environments. We've talked about that a little bit. But tell me a little bit about how you grew up, understanding that and the culture you were in.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy meant a very strict idea of what you could and could not do on the Sabbath. Like I remember it was weird. It wasn't said from the pulpit thou shalt not do, but there was this pressure within our church culture that if you went to the grocery store on a Sunday or if you went out to eat after church on Sunday, that meant you were making someone else work on the Sabbath. So going to the old Piccadilly cafeteria or the Morrison's cafeteria, wherever we went back in the 70s and 80s after church was frowned upon. And even as a kid I remember thinking really, because then I watched my parents were both very actively involved in leadership at the church, so they had either taught Sunday school or kept the nursery. They had been to the main service.
Speaker 1:Then we come home.
Speaker 1:They have to then prepare a meal for all of us to eat.
Speaker 1:Then you got about an hour and then we've got to be back because there's a deacon's meeting or some choir practice or something else before an evening church service.
Speaker 1:And then we've got to be back because there's a deacon's meeting or some choir practice or something else before an evening church service and then we don't get home till eight or nine o'clock at night and I remember hearing like the Sabbath is about the day that God rested. And I'm looking at all this activity we're doing and I'm like this doesn't seem restful. And so why is it OK for my mom to come home and have to do all this stuff to prepare a meal for us, but it's not okay for us to go to the restaurant where we as a family could enjoy one another, because that's going to make someone else work. So it was just a very disconnected and it felt like the focus was more on the rules of what you do and do not do on the Sabbath, rather than this is a day that we can all kind of set aside, disconnect, connect as a family, connect around our relationship with God and enjoy Him and savor and delight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I want to say, like I know that there are probably people listening to us that may practice, that may be a Sabbatarian which is practicing the Sabbath in a you know, not in a strict sense, but in an intentional sense and what I want to encourage people to do as a result of this conversation is to really look at if you are a Sabbatarian or if you are practicing the Sabbath in a regular way or if you're not. Both all of us, let's look at it and let's say what was the intent of what Scripture was encouraging in the idea of Sabbath and rest? Because we have put a lot of man-made constructs around, a lot of different religious things and I think, just based on even what you're saying, sure, we don't. I mean, we don't want to make people work on a Sabbath, but somebody's working on a Sabbath, right? So it's not really like we said. It's not about taking a break from work, it is about it was never meant to be a checklist of what you can't do. It was meant to be a gift of delight and restoration, a rhythm of renewal, and so the intent. There should be an attitude and a posture of the heart, and sometimes religion turns rest into rules and we don't my desires. I definitely have a proclivity toward rules, but I don't really want to miss the intention of God encouraging us and commanding us to keep the Sabbath day holy and remember him.
Speaker 2:You mentioned Dan Allender's book on Sabbath, and that is a very good book, a good resource for people to read. I would encourage you to read that as well. One of the things he says is that we often can miss the joy and the wonder and the presence of God, and the Sabbath is meant to be the best day of the week, full of delight and celebration and intimacy with God. So it's not about a rule or restriction. It's about reclaiming that. Rest means to forget some of the pressures that some of us may have grown up with and to think about it as a blessing, not a burden. To think about rest as something and the Sabbath as something we receive, where we delight and we celebrate and we grow in our intimacy with God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Kimberly, I'm even thinking about you know, you and I have both been on church staffs. We're in full-time ministry. Still Thinking of anyone who serves on a church staff in particular, sunday is not a day of rest, it's a work day, and so part of this is also what I want us to make sure we're getting. The heart of it is what is your Sabbath? Your Sabbath, if you're in full-time ministry, or even just your work schedule, you work on the weekends, or whatever your Sabbath may be, on a Tuesday or a Thursday, it's there's, and some people would disagree with that and go no, it has to be Sunday, or it has to be Monday or Saturday, depending on what you believe is the first day of the week. But I think God's heart on this was tithe back to me a portion of your life. Give back to me some of your time. It's going to be beneficial for you because you need it. You need the rhythm of renewal in your life, and it is where some of this. You know that we keep talking about the strength that equals our days. A lot of that strength, a lot of those roots going down, come in those quiet moments of just enjoying God's presence, and so I agree with you, kimberly.
Speaker 1:Rather than getting stuck on the rules, part of it, or this is the criteria of what a Sabbath means it's looking at my life and going okay. In the last seven days, how much of my life has been about productivity, busyness and me, what I want, and how much of my life have I said okay, god, I want to give back to you this portion of my week. I want to savor and enjoy you because I could be off all day, sunday, and not have a Sabbath. Because if I am not focusing in on enjoying Him and spending time with Him, wanting to hear what he wants to say to me, if I'm on my phone, scrolling through my social media accounts for hours, that's not necessarily enjoying the presence of God and really allowing my spirit, soul and body to be renewed. And so I think it is this invitation to go okay, what does delight and savoring and enjoying?
Speaker 1:Because it's not written in Scripture. But I wonder how much of that seventh day where God rested, he spent it with Adam and Eve. Now, scripture does say he would walk with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, but we don't know during this Sabbath rhythm that they had. Was that the best day of the week for Adam and Eve, because they got more time with the Father. And so I think there's this invitation to go. Okay, I'm not going to make it trying to push harder, strive more, do more on my own. Where my strength is going to come from is taking a step back and enjoying Him.
Speaker 2:We have mentioned a couple of times on this podcast the idea of rest being a weapon. We heard Sylvia say that early on when we started this podcast and we did a bunch of interviews with her. She talked about that rest is a weapon. When it comes to spiritual warfare, it's more than a retreat from the stress. It's actually a powerful weapon that we can use. I think that the enemy thrives on chaos, on getting us into the mode of striving and stressing and spinning our wheels and soul stew and all that kind of stuff. But when we rest in God, when we trust Him, then we actually are denying the enemy the reaction that he wants from us.
Speaker 2:Psalm 46.10, isa verse that most of us have heard. It says be still and know that I am God. That's not a suggestion. It's like I mean it's coming as a command, if you look at the imperative language there, and it's a command that defeats fear. When we choose to follow the command to be still and know that he is God, then we are conquering the enemy because we are resting in the sovereignty and the trust and the faithfulness of who God is. That says the Lord will fight for you. You only need to be still. That's a fierce peace that comes with that that we don't often choose because we are kind of conditioned to strive and to fight. If we could really look at what the thread throughout scripture is, it tells us to rest with this fire in our bones, to rest with an intense trust that God's got it. I mean, that actually is harder to do.
Speaker 1:Yes, much harder to do Absolutely. And I think about when Jesus says in the New Testament come to me, all you who are weary, and I will give you rest. He doesn't say come to me and I'll give you answers or solutions or success or a new idea for how you can solve your problem. What he offers us is rest, and what he actually is offering us is himself, because he is peace, he is rest, and it's not kind of as we've talked about, not this passive, checked out kind of rest. It's an abiding rest where we get yoked in with him, because that same passage talks about take my yoke upon you. So it is.
Speaker 1:This whole concept of rest is not just the cease striving, which is part one. First, elizabeth has to say I am not in control and my worry and my fear is not going to fix this problem. It's just going to drain me of any strength that I may have. But the second part is I'm going to choose to be present and abide and yoke myself in with Jesus because he is my rest and we learn of him and that's to me is the most encouraging part and we learn of him, and that's to me is the most encouraging part. I'm not good at resting sometimes, especially if there's a crisis going on or something I'm concerned about, or this person was supposed to respond to my email and they haven't yet, and so I don't know what's gonna happen next.
Speaker 1:You could just feel that soul stew, that kind of gets stirred up, even about the little things in life. And so it's not just that he tells us we need to rest. He's like I'll teach you how. If you will come and be present with me, if you will come and yoke yourself to me, I will teach you how to rest in me, and I'm so grateful for that, because he is our peace, he is our shalom, and when we carry his presence with us is our shalom. And when we carry his presence with us, rest travels with us into the chaos and into the unknown of the battles, and it's almost like being in the eye of the hurricane, where there can be a thousand storms going on around you, but if you stay in the center of that hurricane, you don't feel anything, the wind completely stops, and that's where Jesus is inviting us to live in that rest.
Speaker 2:Sometimes the most courageous thing we can do is to pause, hmm, to breathe, to say no, to stop striving and to trust that God is already working. Like we've said, I often talk about the difference between responding and reacting, and reacting has a bit of a franticness to it. Like I always say, if you have white carpet and you spill a cup of coffee on it, you have a reaction which is like oh no, we gotta clean it up. Like a frantic, take care of it. But a response is like it's carpet, it's going to be okay, we just need to figure out what we need to use to get this up. And I think about that like truly responding.
Speaker 2:Worship is a response. It's looking at who God is and it's saying I want to pause, I want to breathe, I want to take you in, I want to recognize who you are and I want to worship you, I want to praise you and I want to honor you. And that's what Ruth speaks to in Ruth 3.18. Sit still, my daughter, until you know how the matter will turn out. That verse is speaking stillness and rest and trust. And it's hard. We're not saying it's easy at all.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But we are saying that if we can turn our posture and our attitude toward understanding who God really is, then maybe we can have like a non-reactive response to who he is. We can choose to say he is trustworthy. I may not like it, but he is trustworthy. I may not understand it, but he is trustworthy. I may not get it, but he is trustworthy. I may not understand it, but he is trustworthy. I may not get it, but he is trustworthy. And so I can rest and take comfort in who he is. Not in the circumstances, not in the situation.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, and I love that verse because there's been several key moments in my life, for both mom and I, when, like things were tough and that verse would come to us and remind us that our job was to sit still, my daughter, because sometimes rest looks like sitting in the unknown. And you can do that because you have full assurance that God's not going to rest until he fulfills his promise. And there's a lot of times that I've been like, okay, god, it feels like you're not doing anything, but I have to trust that you will not rest until this is done, because you've promised that I'm supposed to sit still, I'm supposed to trust, I'm supposed to rest and that you're going to work it out until the matter is finished. But that's so hard, kimberly, because, as you just said, it requires trust and, if we're honest, we sometimes struggle to trust that God's really got it and that he won't drop the ball and that it's up to us to hold everything together, because if I don't spin all the plates, who's going to spin them right? And so we have.
Speaker 1:We resist rest because we fear the loss of control. If I'm being very honest, why do I not rest? Because I somehow feel God needs my help in order for all of this to come out. Okay, but in reality I never had control to begin with, but I've always had a faithful father who is going to come through for me. It may not look like how I want him to come through, it may not be the timing that I want him to come through, and I may never fully understand all that he did on my behalf in that particular situation until the other side of glory, but he is faithful and he. He is there for us and he is true and he is someone that we can put our rest in.
Speaker 2:So how is it that we practice rest? I think it starts small. I think it starts with setting aside time each day to just be still, not to scroll, not to chill, but to truly be still, with no agenda, just breathing, listening, acknowledging God's presence, whispering to Him that we trust Him. Maybe we start by honoring a day of Sabbath, not out of duty but out of delight. Maybe we look for days where we can have joy and wonder and worship and play.
Speaker 1:Kimberly. I think about it in our human relationships. Yeah, Kim, if you and I want to spend time together, we have to plan that. Okay, when are you available? Okay, this is when I'm available. Okay, we're blocking off this afternoon to spend time together. And I think, in the same way, we have to be intentional with okay, I'm blocking out. At least for me, I have to do it this way because, if not, the chaos of the day will take over. So I need to be looking on my calendar and go okay, I want an hour with God a day.
Speaker 1:And for a while I did this. I committed to watching the sunset with Him every day and I let it be known to the team of people I was working with. I will not be available for one hour around this time. And at first they thought, okay, this was a little strange, but whatever, and I would go and find somewhere where I could see the sunset and I would listen to worship music and just spend time with God, take a walk, enjoy him, whatever. After a little while, if I somehow slipped up and I did from time to time and I missed going to watch a sunset, the people on my team were like aren't you supposed to be watching a sunset with God? I'm like, oh, you're right. And so they watched me model it. And then they started choosing their own times. The reason why I choose sunset is I am not an early riser, I am not going to be the one who wakes up and sees the sunrise with God, but I can make it to sunset.
Speaker 1:So, for each of us, if it's a time in every day that we say, okay, set an alarm on my phone. From this time to this time, I'm going to cease whatever I'm doing, the email can wait, the phone call can be returned later and I'm going to say God, you're the most important thing, and I'm going to spend time with him. Or is it a day where, on your calendar, you plan all right, this many hours a week I want to set aside to go do something with just me and God. Whether that's a car ride, I often hear God better in motion. So it can be a walk or a car ride.
Speaker 1:As Kimberly said, go sit at the beach, if you're fortunate enough to live near one, or just find a quiet spot, even within your own home, and just say to your phone and everyone else I'm not available right now and just really spend time enjoying the relationship with him, Because if we're not intentional to plan for it, so often the craziness of the day gets involved and we just miss it, and then after a while you can look up and go ah, I've missed him. So some people call that a quiet time that they have sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evenings. But whatever that rhythm is for you to say God, you are so important that I'm going to make you a priority in the amount of time that I have, because we all have the same amount of time in a day. So how am I going to prioritize time with him in the amount of time that I have, because we all have the same amount of time in a day. So how am I going to prioritize time with him in the midst of that?
Speaker 2:So when you wake up each day and you're trying to sort through how you're approaching the day, or when you get into the day and you pause a minute to think about it, we would encourage you to ask the question am I working from rest or am I working from a place of striving? That question can shift your whole day a little bit and help you refocus and reorient, to really be intentional about where you're coming from, if you're striving or if you're resting. And we want you to remember that rest is not weakness, like we've talked about. It's warfare, it's worship, it's where your real strength begins. That strength to equal your days is going to come from Sabbath rest, true, genuine Sabbath rest. So, as we close today, we want to close with a blessing over you. Be blessed with peace that surpasses all understanding, a peace that's rooted in the unshakable truth that God is in control and can be deeply trusted.
Speaker 1:Be blessed as you rest between His shoulders, untouched by chaos, guarded by His love. May you live from a place of holy stillness and fierce trust, knowing that the Lord will fight for you, and may His God-sized rest strengthen your spirit, soul and body, steadying your heart and sustaining you every single day. I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast. This podcast is made possible through donations by people like you. To donate, go to wwwthefathersbusinesscom. Be sure to follow us at the father's biz on instagram and facebook.
