Why Sabbath Rest Fuels Your God-Given Dream

What if the exhaustion you feel at the end of every week is an invitation to live differently?

You’ve landed at the third mini episode in my Habits Series. In this one, I’m talking about Sabbath rest, not because we need another rule to follow but because of the inherent value of working from rest rather than for it. 

For years, I treated rest as a burden, something I gave in to after pushing myself too hard. But a simple biblical insight shared by a friend shifted everything for me and helped me see rest as preparation, not recovery. In this episode, I share that story, explore the heart behind Sabbath, and walk you through what intentional, restorative rest looks like in my own life.

If you’re feeling worn down, constantly on, or quietly wondering how long you can keep going like this, I want you to listen. This conversation may help you reconnect with God in a gentler way, care for your soul more honestly, and build rhythms that can sustain you for the road ahead of dreaming with God.

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Transcript

Merritt Onsa:
What is something you could do today that would impact your God shaped dream and your ability to persevere in it for the long haul? Hi, I'm Merritt Onsa, your devoted dreamers host, and I am an authority on what it looks like to pursue a God shaped dream. And over the next several mini episodes, I'm going to be talking about building simple, small habits that will build into you confidence and the consistency you need to run your race after the dream God has given you.

Let's build some new habits. If you could use a tool to make keeping your habits just a little bit easier, maybe gamify it a little bit, I've got a free habit tracker for you at merrittonsa.com/habits. You will find the link to that in the show notes. And I'm to talk a little bit more about it towards the end of the episode. Today's episode may be slightly longer than some of the others. I'm talking about weekly Sabbath.

Now, a simple Google search took me to an entry at GotQuestions.org, which said, the scriptures make it clear that for the Christian, Sabbath keeping is a matter of spiritual freedom, not a command from God. Sabbath keeping is an issue on which God's word instructs us not to judge each other. Sabbath keeping is a matter about which each Christian needs to be fully convinced in his or her own mind. So I'm going to allow you to be fully convinced in your own mind about whether or not Sabbath keeping is for you.

But this episode is to talk about why Sabbath is important for the restorative rest that our minds, our bodies, our spirits need at least once a week. Another entry on gotquestions.org was a little bit of the history, the biblical history. So keeping the Sabbath was a sign of the covenant between Israel and the Lord. "You must observe my Sabbaths," is a quote. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come. Exodus 31:13.

And it says, "As Israel kept the Sabbath set apart, they were reminded that they were also being set apart." Quote, "so you may know that I am the Lord who makes you holy." That's verse 13 of Exodus 31. Believers today being under the new covenant are not bound to keep the sign of the old covenant. And yet there is still a lot of talk amongst believers about the value of keeping the Sabbath. So no longer a command to do this once a week, do not work all the things Sabbath.

But there is something worth examining in God's effort of creation where he rested on the seventh day and thinking about how do I apply that to my life? We often think of rest as a thing that happens after we work. We rest because we're tired. We rest because our body demands it. We've had a hard week. We've had a long day. Whatever it is, we'll rest when the work ends. But what if we have this backwards? What if rest is what prepares us to do the work that God has given us?

So in the realm of why it's important to consider keeping the Sabbath, I want to mention to you, my friend, Courtney Davis. She was a guest on the podcast in episode 175 titled when God takes your dream in a direction you never imagined. Courtney and I are personal friends. We've known each other for over a decade, but she and I had a coaching session in the summer of 2021, right before our family of four moved into a new home with my aging parents to assist with their care. I had been homeschooling our eldest daughter, working, podcasting, packing up the house, getting ready to sell, sorting things, cleaning, life was exhausting. I literally told her, I do not have time to talk with you about how I can do better at restorative rest. 

But Courtney, my dear friend, was like, let's just have a conversation. And on that call, she said something that has stuck with me. And it was this, that Adam, as in Adam and Eve, Adam's first full day of his existence on earth was a day of rest. If you go back and look, God's seventh day of creation was Adam's first full day on earth and his first experience of life was a day of rest. I was like, huh, okay. And so what do I do with that? Courtney shared with me this idea that in kind of our modern day living, we think about Sabbath or rest as something that we need to do as a result of having worked all week, like, collapse on the couch and I'm just going to binge Netflix or, you know, stare into space because I've worked so hard this week or I've, you know, really been overwhelmed caring for a house full of children or whatever it is and that the rest comes after the work. But this example of Adam experiencing rest as his first experience of human life and this conversation with Courtney about that helped me begin considering implementing a weekly Sabbath day for myself, not so that I could rest from the work that I had done, but so that I could rest for the work that was coming. It would, it became more proactive than reactive. 

And so now here I am more than a year and a half later, I really see tremendous value in devoting time to intentional rest, especially restorative rest, the kind of rest that prepares you for what is ahead, knowing that work and life and parenting and all the things that's gonna take something out of you. And so how do we restore ourselves from weariness? How do we spend time focusing on God to refuel spiritually through worship, prayer, gratitude, or praise? Not just to veg out, but because our bodies require rest to be prepared to do what is next. So here is what Sabbath rest looks like for me.

In a normal week, because I have kids and I run a business Monday through Friday is kind of what my normal rhythms of my work days look like. And, Thursday, Friday and Saturday are kind of the, slower days of the week. you know, of the week ending the work week. And those are days where I think about things like doing laundry. I like to do laundry on Thursday nights. I'm not sure why that rhythm has just happened and I'm stuck with it. but at this point too, at the end of the week,

On a Friday, I'm thinking about the projects and tasks that are wrapping up. I'm thinking about whether we have people coming for dinner or the husband and I have a date night, whether we go out or stay in. A lot of times our Friday or Saturday nights are, you know, we sit on the couch and we watch a movie together. That's just something that we've always done since before we were married. But on Sunday mornings, we go to church and we are consistent in this habit of going to church unless somebody is sick. Right? But after church, we come home, we make lunch, we eat. And then the remainder of the day is devoted to rest and for connecting with one another, connecting with our family, for taking walks, for just being together, maybe for some reading time. So you're also going to hear me talk on another one of these habit episodes about implementing a habit of weekly planning, so my Sabbath is really Sunday from when I get up in the morning to church to that restful time in the afternoon, right up until about sundown. 

So when the sun goes down on Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening, depending on the time of year, I spend about an hour to 90 minutes planning for my week to come. And I had to think about this a little bit. Like, is it not okay? Okay. It's not the right word, but do I want my weekly planning ritual to occur on the same day where I have set aside time for restorative rest? Like I have purposefully not been doing work around the house. I have purposefully not been doing work at the computer at my desk. Am I okay with setting aside the evening for that weekly planning time? And the reason I've decided that Sunday night works best for me for that weekly planning is because I am setting myself up for success in the week to come. So it is a restful activity. It may not be in the moment, but it is preparing me for the week to know, have I just like overbooked myself? Are there some things I need to shift around if I can work out where my crazy days are going to be in the week and maybe make some adjustments on that, it's worth it to me to spend that Sunday evening time doing that planning. So I know what's ahead. That is a proactive effort that I make to, allow more rest and freedom in my week to come. So after that, I might read a little bit before bed, but that's pretty much my Sunday. I don't have a lot of to-dos. We don't do a lot of social engagements on Sundays.

And that's what my Sabbath is. There's not real particular rituals. I try to engage my kids with conversation all the time, but particularly on Sunday, we might talk about what they learned in church or a particular song or something that we loved from our experience being with our church community, but that's really it. That is what the Sabbath looks like for me. 

So as you think about, what restorative rest and resting for work instead of from work. If you were to think about what that looked like for you, this habit is less of a check the box on my habit tracker, though you could do that. You could use that tool for this. But this habit is one that I would suggest having some reflection time around as you're deciding, is this something I want to do on a consistent basis and would this serve me and my dream and the work that I've been called to do in the world. I would start before you even begin or adjust a Sabbath habit that you have for yourself. I would start by taking inventory of how you spend your hours every week and where your weariness comes into play. I would also spend some time taking inventory of your soul health. Like what are you doing to care for your own soul? Where are those things happening? Are you doing anything for that purpose? And what might you benefit from?

Then would say, be brutally honest with yourself or ask a friend or partner to help you do that. If you find that you are consistently trying to do too much, if you are constantly exhausted, if you're falling into bed at the end of the day, if you cannot get everything done, sit down and talk with somebody who loves you and have a conversation about, Hey, what might I need to adjust here? How could I implement Sabbath in my life? And would, would that be a habit that would serve me in this season of life? And then I would start by finding moments in your day for restorative rest. So this is not necessarily on a Sunday, but how can you insert these little habits to add Sabbath rest to your life? So take a walk around the block, sit and read a book for 10 minutes, stare out the window. Have you ever done that? Just stare out the window, intentionally stared out the window, listen to worship music, whatever it is for you that helps you recharge and get off the treadmill.

That would be the beginning of establishing a habit of Sabbath rest. I've got a couple more episodes of the podcast that I would refer you to on this topic. Episode 241 is my interview with Mindy Caliguire, founder of Soul Care. So that episode was What is Soul Care and How to Know If You Need It. And then episode 203, the solo episode, Why Rest Not Hustle Is the Fuel Your Dream Needs that will emphasize everything that I've talked about here today and go into it in a little bit more detail.

I want to leave you with this important note today. You can begin a new habit anytime. And it's important because consistency builds courage and consistency is self perpetuating. This month I'm asking you to consider one to two small habits that you could begin today that would give you that practice of building that muscle memory. Pick something simple. Pick something that's easy. Pick something you want to do and something you can do quickly.

Pick a habit that has an outcome you would be excited to achieve, to receive, to see that change in your life. Like the two minute vocal warmup I talked about in the intro to these habit episodes. So that even if you don't want to do it in the moment, you might be able to tell yourself, hey, it's only gonna take me a couple of minutes. And this is something I said I wanted to do. And then track yourself. What you don't measure, you cannot improve. Peter Drucker said something like that. 

And the point is that if you don't have a gauge for how you're doing, how frequently you're doing it, what days you're missing, maybe even what stood in the way of you getting it done that day, it's impossible to know whether any change or shift has occurred. That's why I'm giving you a free habit tracker to help you monitor your efforts in building new habits. If you're not familiar with what a habit tracker is, it's this simple little one page tool. I'll give it to you in a PDF printable format. If you're a paper girl like I am, you can find the free habit tracker at merrittonsa.com/habits. Pick your habit, start tracking it and see what God does with your consistency and perseverance to establish new habits.