Latest / Fulfilled with Rebecca Sheehan / The Sabbath: God’s Gift for the Burned-Out | Ep. 16

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The Sabbath: God’s Gift for the Burned-Out | Ep. 16 · Fulfilled with Rebecca Sheehan

0:09
SPEAKER_01: Hey, everybody.
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SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Fulfilled.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Rebecca Sheehan.
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Today we're going to talk about one of the most elusive
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luxuries in our society,
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SPEAKER_01: rest and renewal.
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Humans seem to have this innate tendency to drive ourselves to
0:25
the point of utter
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SPEAKER_01: and complete burnout.
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SPEAKER_01: And our constant use of screens makes it even worse,
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keeping our fight or flight system on high alert pretty much
0:35
all the time.
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SPEAKER_01: It's funny though,
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overworking ourselves is clearly not a new problem since God
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felt the need to
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SPEAKER_01: include a day of rest in the Ten Commandments.
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SPEAKER_01: And when you look at it this way,
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SPEAKER_01: you could see the Sabbath as a true gift from God,
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SPEAKER_01: yet so many Jews and Christians tend to ignore it entirely.
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It's so hard to stop and take a breath when the world pulls us
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so strongly into
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SPEAKER_01: treating it like just another day.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: This is a problem,
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SPEAKER_01: and it's one that people are talking about even more right now,
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SPEAKER_01: ever since the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk,
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SPEAKER_01: since he was so vocal and passionate about observing the Sabbath.
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SPEAKER_01: Not just going to church on Sunday,
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SPEAKER_01: but in a way closer to the original Old Testament sense,
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SPEAKER_01: truly shutting down from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown.
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SPEAKER_01: Charlie even wrote a book on this called Stop in the Name of God.
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SPEAKER_01: So what does the Sabbath mean for Christians today?
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SPEAKER_01: Should it be observed like Charlie Kirk urged?
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SPEAKER_01: Or does it risk sliding into legalism,
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the false belief that we need to follow rules really well to
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earn God's love rather
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SPEAKER_01: than trusting in His grace?
1:42
SPEAKER_01: To help us explore this question and more,
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SPEAKER_01: I'm thrilled to welcome Pastor Mark Buchanan,
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SPEAKER_01: author of The Rest of God,
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SPEAKER_01: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath,
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which is a thoughtful and practical guide to living Sabbath in
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a way that can
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SPEAKER_01: transform your faith and your life.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: Mark, thank you so much for being here.
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SPEAKER_00: Rebecca, it's a real pleasure.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for inviting me.
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SPEAKER_01: So this is a very specific topic.
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SPEAKER_01: How did you become passionate enough to write a book about it?
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
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SPEAKER_00: the book's called The Rest of God,
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SPEAKER_00: but it did come out of this crisis where I was imploding.
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SPEAKER_00: I was not functioning well in my work, in my relationships, in my health.
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SPEAKER_00: And God led me into discovery of this gift of Sabbath.
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SPEAKER_00: So the book is really in some ways a celebration of this gift.
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SPEAKER_00: It's the goodness of God and saying, here, why don't you stop?
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SPEAKER_00: Which is really what Shabbat means.
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SPEAKER_00: Sabbath means stop.
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SPEAKER_00: Why don't you stop now?
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But I build into it also,
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after every chapter,
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what I call a Sabbath liturgy.
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SPEAKER_00: Here's a little practice you might try to sort of slow down,
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SPEAKER_00: to be present,
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SPEAKER_00: to notice,
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SPEAKER_00: to pay attention.
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SPEAKER_01: So it's more a mindset rather than...
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SPEAKER_01: things to do or not.
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SPEAKER_00: It really is.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is a gift.
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SPEAKER_00: It was built into the creation as a gift.
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The covenant makes it law because I think that it got so
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neglected both by the
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people of God and by the wider culture that it had to be
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restored as a law so that
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SPEAKER_00: we took it seriously and then gave it back to the rest of the world.
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SPEAKER_01: Pharisees, I think, give it such a bad rap in the Bible.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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SPEAKER_01: the way they tried to keep it so strictly,
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SPEAKER_01: like Jesus is doing such great things and they're yelling at him.
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SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: You can't heal on the Sabbath.
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SPEAKER_00: How dare you?
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SPEAKER_00: Wait a second.
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This lady was suffering for 18 years and you don't want me to
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sort of restore the
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SPEAKER_00: shatteredness of creation.
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I think actually the deep meaning of Sabbath is we switch from
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the mode of
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SPEAKER_00: productivity where I have to create things.
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SPEAKER_00: I have to earn my keep in a sense.
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SPEAKER_00: I have to kind of justify my existence by productivity.
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SPEAKER_00: The beauty of the gift of Sabbath is God says,
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now I want you to come back into your childlike delight in my
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fatherly love for
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SPEAKER_00: you.
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SPEAKER_00: And so we switch out of that to the mode of receptivity,
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SPEAKER_00: where we receive what God wants to give.
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So sleep,
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especially during the day,
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a nap is an unproductive thing in some ways.
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SPEAKER_00: It's almost inherently.
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SPEAKER_00: And even if we sort of use the language of power nap,
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SPEAKER_00: that I'm going to kind of get this 20 minutes,
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SPEAKER_00: it's going to energize me to do more things.
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SPEAKER_00: We can dispense with all of that and just say,
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SPEAKER_00: my body is saying,
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this would be lovely if you could just lie down on the couch or
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in the bed or
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SPEAKER_00: whatever for the next 30 or 40 minutes.
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SPEAKER_00: And I don't have to produce anything.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to receive energy.
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SPEAKER_01: That makes me feel less guilty about taking one.
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SPEAKER_01: I like that.
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SPEAKER_00: Yes, attentiveness is fundamentally what it is.
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SPEAKER_00: It's this attentiveness to myself, to the other, to God, to the moment.
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Because part of what happens when we get in productive mode,
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we're not ever in the moment.
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SPEAKER_00: We're sort of chasing the future that never arrives.
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SPEAKER_00: Or when we stop,
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SPEAKER_00: when we finally stop because we're just forced to it,
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we often go into kind of a nostalgia or a lament about the
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mistakes I've made
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SPEAKER_00: through the day or through the week or through my life or whatever.
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SPEAKER_00: So there's a regretting...
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SPEAKER_00: That often comes when we finally stop.
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SPEAKER_00: Where Sabbath is very much about being in the moment.
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SPEAKER_00: It's about kind of this child right now who's trying to get my attention.
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SPEAKER_00: So I get down on the floor and I give them my full attention.
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SPEAKER_00: Or this meal that's been put before me.
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SPEAKER_00: And I don't just shovel it down, but I savor it.
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SPEAKER_00: I savor the taste.
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I practice a profound gratitude for the earth that gave me
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these things and the
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SPEAKER_00: animal that gave it this life,
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SPEAKER_00: this joy that I can have,
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SPEAKER_00: this company,
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SPEAKER_00: the skill of whoever prepared this for me.
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SPEAKER_00: Or even just the joy of being in the kitchen and creating it.
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SPEAKER_00: So all of these things are acts of attentiveness.
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SPEAKER_00: And that would be the number one thing.
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SPEAKER_00: And really,
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all of the liturgies I write in the book are a version of how
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to become present in
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SPEAKER_00: those ways.
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But I believe I have a chapter on walking and just walking your
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neighborhood afresh.
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SPEAKER_00: And why not go out and notice what you haven't noticed before?
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And this is much more potent than if I'm just in a drive and
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everything's whizzing by.
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SPEAKER_00: Every time I go for a walk,
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SPEAKER_00: even if it's a path I've walked a thousand times,
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SPEAKER_00: I will notice no things.
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SPEAKER_00: And of course, weather changes.
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SPEAKER_00: So a place looks different in rain or sun or fall or winter, et cetera.
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SPEAKER_00: So I actually teach a whole class on Sabbath, Rebecca.
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And one of the very first things I have the class do is I have
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them write a poem.
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SPEAKER_00: And I say,
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SPEAKER_00: you don't have to be a good poet and you don't have to share it,
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SPEAKER_00: but if you want to,
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SPEAKER_00: you can.
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SPEAKER_00: But a poem is an act of attentiveness.
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And I'm often astonished at people who don't typically write
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poetry writing some
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really vivid and evocative poems as they stop and breathe and
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notice and capture
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SPEAKER_00: that in some language.
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SPEAKER_01: Why did our society go so wrong in this idolizing productivity?
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SPEAKER_01: Because when you first said the word poetry,
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SPEAKER_01: I think my gut instinct is to be like,
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SPEAKER_01: well,
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SPEAKER_01: that's not productive.
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SPEAKER_01: I don't do that.
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SPEAKER_00: There's a great point.
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SPEAKER_00: I forget his name,
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SPEAKER_00: but he was being interviewed once and he was asked,
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SPEAKER_00: when did you become a poet?
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SPEAKER_00: And he said, oh, no, no, no, no.
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SPEAKER_00: We're all born poets.
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SPEAKER_00: We love language.
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SPEAKER_00: We love to play with words.
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SPEAKER_00: We love to play with sounds.
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SPEAKER_00: The real question is, when did you stop being a poet?
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SPEAKER_00: And,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: when you think about it,
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SPEAKER_00: Rebecca,
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SPEAKER_00: the things that matter most are in some ways a waste of time.
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SPEAKER_00: It's so true.
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SPEAKER_00: Because worship is unproductive.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean, it renews us, but we don't do it for the sake of renewal.
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SPEAKER_00: But the renewal is a byproduct of the act of worship.
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SPEAKER_00: We worship because God's worthy of it,
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SPEAKER_00: because our souls actually are made for it,
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SPEAKER_00: because if we don't,
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SPEAKER_00: we end up worshiping anyhow,
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SPEAKER_00: but the things are lesser and they'll eat us alive,
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SPEAKER_00: etc.
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And if we get too tied into a culture of productivity that's
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measuring not only
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SPEAKER_00: its kind of values but also our worth by what we do.
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I think that's probably one of the biggest idols of the age is
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that the idol of
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SPEAKER_00: utility,
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SPEAKER_00: pragmatism,
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SPEAKER_00: and productivity.
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SPEAKER_01: If people start following or observing the Sabbath,
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will that just slowly start to kind of chip away at our
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idolatry of productivity
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SPEAKER_01: the rest of the week?
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SPEAKER_00: I absolutely think so.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean,
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the whole healthy Jewish understanding of the Sabbath is we
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don't live toward it,
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SPEAKER_00: we live out of it.
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So it's not like we get the reward at the end of the long
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workday that now you can
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SPEAKER_00: sort of kick back.
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SPEAKER_00: We live out of this space of rest because rest is fundamentally trust.
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SPEAKER_00: I can't rest if I can't trust.
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SPEAKER_00: If my world feels always imperiled,
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SPEAKER_00: always at the edge of falling apart,
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SPEAKER_00: then I simply can't rest.
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SPEAKER_00: Because I have to manage things.
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I have to run around and sort of make sure I put my fingers in
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all the holes in the
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SPEAKER_00: dikes or whatever.
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SPEAKER_00: Whereas the ultimate act of trust is actually sleep.
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SPEAKER_00: I just completely abandon myself to whatever might come.
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SPEAKER_00: And I simply enter in this place of, you know, God, you are there.
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SPEAKER_00: You are working all things together for good.
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SPEAKER_00: So I think if we practice that,
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the overflow of it is that the rest of the week starts to look
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a little saner,
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SPEAKER_00: a little more tranquil,
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SPEAKER_00: a little more restful,
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SPEAKER_00: a little more peaceful.
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SPEAKER_00: But Sabbath is this thing we live out of, not sort of try to live toward.
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SPEAKER_01: Practically speaking,
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SPEAKER_01: are there certain things that you would encourage people to do or not do,
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SPEAKER_01: like...
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
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SPEAKER_00: I mean,
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SPEAKER_00: there's sort of an old piece of wisdom that if you work with your hands,
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SPEAKER_00: you should Sabbath with your mind.
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SPEAKER_00: And if you work with your mind, you should Sabbath with your hands.
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SPEAKER_00: That's why I like gardening.
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SPEAKER_00: Perfect break.
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SPEAKER_00: You're talking, you're thinking, you're doing podcasts and all that.
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SPEAKER_00: So go out and pull carrots or something.
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SPEAKER_00: Touch the soil.
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SPEAKER_00: If you're a carpenter, read a book on the Sabbath.
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SPEAKER_00: So I think that's a general principle.
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SPEAKER_01: So how do you personally keep the Sabbath?
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SPEAKER_00: The really practical thing is in Jewish practice,
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SPEAKER_00: in order to anticipate the coming of the Sabbath,
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SPEAKER_00: rabbis talked about,
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SPEAKER_00: think of the Sabbath as a queen or a bride coming to your house.
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SPEAKER_00: This image has never worked for me.
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SPEAKER_00: That just gives me anxiety.
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SPEAKER_00: But what I think of when really good friends come,
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And when really good friends are coming,
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you kind of reorder your schedule.
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SPEAKER_00: You're not just business as usual.
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You kind of try to do a bunch of stuff ahead of time that you
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can be fully present,
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SPEAKER_00: fully available,
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SPEAKER_00: go for walks,
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SPEAKER_00: have meals,
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SPEAKER_00: sit up a little later,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: having long conversations,
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SPEAKER_00: laugh,
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SPEAKER_00: reminisce,
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SPEAKER_00: all that.
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SPEAKER_00: So to me, building an anticipation for Sabbath
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SPEAKER_00: Like it's a great friend coming.
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SPEAKER_00: And what would you change in your schedule or,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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the typical routines that you have in order to be fully present
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and hospitable
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SPEAKER_00: toward these really dear friends that you're so eager to spend time with?
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SPEAKER_00: That just works for me because I just know if Kevin and Cindy are coming,
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SPEAKER_00: they're very dear friends.
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SPEAKER_00: My wife and I will well plan ahead.
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And that's I think that's the wisdom of the Jewish practice
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where you get stuff
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SPEAKER_00: done beforehand so you can just savor what's happening in the moment.
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I had Orthodox Jewish friends back when I was a TV reporter in
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Alabama,
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of all places.
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And it was really fun to see them prepare for the Sabbath,
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like you were saying.
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SPEAKER_01: I mean, they would spend all day Friday leading up to sundown cooking.
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And my goodness,
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they had the biggest meals,
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enough food for like 50 people.
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SPEAKER_01: And they did.
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SPEAKER_01: They invited everyone to their homes.
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SPEAKER_01: And I remember we took walks together.
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It was such a nice kind of anachronistic way of living for a
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day every week.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: And at its best, it is so beautiful.
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SPEAKER_00: And I like your word anachronistic.
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SPEAKER_00: Who does this anymore?
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SPEAKER_01: Right.
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SPEAKER_00: What if we did?
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SPEAKER_01: What do you think about phones?
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SPEAKER_01: Like, do you turn your phone off?
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SPEAKER_00: You know, my zipper, that's a piece of technology.
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SPEAKER_00: So the sort of banning of all technology is, it's just impractical.
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So we're talking about this invasive technology that just kind
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of beeping and,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: making all sorts of sounds and endlessly distracting.
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SPEAKER_00: The notifications, those are so bad.
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SPEAKER_00: I would just start by just as a general rule,
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SPEAKER_00: turning off all your notifications,
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SPEAKER_00: especially on Sabbath,
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but I don't have any notifications on my phone because I just
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don't want this thing
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SPEAKER_00: endlessly diverting and distracting me.
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But if you have like all my children live elsewhere,
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one lives in Taiwan.
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And so to sort of ban the technology that might allow me to
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FaceTime them during
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SPEAKER_00: Sabbath,
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SPEAKER_00: I just think to impose that as a general rule would be would be a mess.
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But the main thing is take anything that keeps pulling you back
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into the work a day world.
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SPEAKER_00: this world of hurry,
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SPEAKER_00: this world of productivity,
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SPEAKER_00: whatever that may be,
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SPEAKER_00: try to hide that thing from yourself for 24 hours.
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SPEAKER_00: So if that is your phone, go quarantine the thing.
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SPEAKER_00: There's an old practice of the Sabbath box,
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SPEAKER_00: where the thing that was most likely to pull you back into the world,
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SPEAKER_00: if you could actually put that in a literal box,
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SPEAKER_00: put the box in a closet,
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SPEAKER_00: lock the closet,
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SPEAKER_00: make it off limits,
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SPEAKER_00: and you know where it is,
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SPEAKER_00: you can get to it,
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SPEAKER_00: but it can't get to you.
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SPEAKER_00: And that's the wisdom of that.
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SPEAKER_01: Too bad we can't put certain apps in a closet.
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SPEAKER_01: You can't really put your whole phone in.
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SPEAKER_01: But I think if you're honest with yourself,
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SPEAKER_01: you know what it is on your phone that distracts you.
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SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I might try that actually.
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SPEAKER_01: Instagram, that's a bad one.
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SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: I was saying to somebody the other day,
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SPEAKER_00: there's no other,
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SPEAKER_00: I don't look at Facebook much or any of that stuff.
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SPEAKER_00: But something about Instagram,
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SPEAKER_00: and I'll suddenly realize I just spent a half an hour looking at nothing.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: So I just actually two days ago decided enough of that.
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I'm going to sort of enact some disciplines around that and put
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some boundaries around that.
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Our culture,
14:09
as we've discussed,
14:10
glorifies being busy and productive to a fault.
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What's the biggest misconception about the Sabbath that you'd
14:17
like for Christians to understand?
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that it has to be kept.
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SPEAKER_00: rather than it's a thing that keeps us.
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SPEAKER_00: I think that there's such a default in the human art that when we start a
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SPEAKER_00: discipline,
14:31
SPEAKER_00: especially something so life-giving as a Sabbath,
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SPEAKER_00: that we immediately want to know what are the rules here.
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And I think it's just part of the human condition that we want
14:43
fairly clear
14:45
SPEAKER_00: structures around it.
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SPEAKER_00: But finally, it is about paying attention.
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SPEAKER_00: So if we can sort of become present
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SPEAKER_00: And then allow the Sabbath to nurture us,
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SPEAKER_00: restore us,
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SPEAKER_00: bring us back into this right relationship with God,
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SPEAKER_00: with ourselves,
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SPEAKER_00: with others.
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What's some practical advice for people who have obligations on
15:06
Sunday they can't
15:07
SPEAKER_01: really get around?
15:08
SPEAKER_01: I have young kids and sports games.
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That's a huge problem for parents who have kids that are
15:14
serious athletes.
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SPEAKER_01: All the birthday parties that people schedule on Sunday mornings even.
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We're in a cultural moment where it is almost impossible to
15:25
participate in a full
15:26
Sabbath just because we don't have any kind of structures
15:30
anymore in the culture
15:31
SPEAKER_00: that would encourage it,
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SPEAKER_00: promote it,
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SPEAKER_00: give space for it.
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SPEAKER_00: So it's really, really hard.
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SPEAKER_00: But I would say...
15:39
Could you find five hours where you step back from your mode of
15:44
productivity,
15:46
SPEAKER_00: that you got quiet,
15:47
SPEAKER_00: that you went for a walk,
15:48
SPEAKER_00: that you paid attention,
15:49
SPEAKER_00: those sorts of things.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Find a shorter period that you could fit into a given day.
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SPEAKER_00: Maybe you could find two of those a week.
15:58
And what that will do is it will build a muscle for it because
16:01
it's usually hard at first.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews forces make every effort to enter the Sabbath.
16:06
There's this effortfulness at first trying to reorder our lives
16:10
around the practice of rest.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: If we haven't been restful, we're literally restless.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: And to sort of move into a place where you can...
16:19
truly rest and not be sort of just distracted and anxious and
16:23
all of that,
16:23
SPEAKER_00: that's going to take some work.
16:25
So why don't you start with the time that you can actually
16:28
carve out and begin to practice it?
16:31
And I think what will emerge out of that is some sense of how
16:35
you can start to
16:36
SPEAKER_00: expand that time where you receive rest.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: That's great advice for all of us, I think, who are busy all the time.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:44
What is the biggest impact you've seen on families and on their
16:49
connectedness after
16:51
SPEAKER_01: following the Sabbath,
16:52
SPEAKER_01: whether it's your family personally or others?
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
16:54
SPEAKER_00: I was just with a pastor friend two nights ago,
16:57
SPEAKER_00: and his three daughters,
16:58
SPEAKER_00: aged 12,
17:00
SPEAKER_00: I think through six,
17:01
SPEAKER_00: were there.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: And they started a Sabbath practice as a family about three years ago.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: And I asked each of these young women what they love.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: And they actually all identified it as their favorite day of the week.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: And they talked about the meals.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: And the oldest one, she's just about to become a teenager.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: But she said, I just love that we can just enjoy being together.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: We can enjoy this meal.
17:28
And all of the pressure of having to clean up or make the
17:33
thing,
17:33
that pressure is not on us.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: But what I...
17:36
What I was hearing through all of these young women waxing
17:40
poetic about the Sabbath
17:43
SPEAKER_00: is underneath,
17:44
they felt they were connecting as a family in ways that the
17:47
rush you described at
17:49
SPEAKER_00: the beginning,
17:49
SPEAKER_00: the rush of any given day or week.
17:52
We're together as a family,
17:53
but we're not necessarily connected as a family.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: And they were celebrating this deep connection that they felt.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: Certainly a lot to think about.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: So in closing,
18:03
is there one particular Bible verse that you consider your
18:06
favorite or the most
18:07
SPEAKER_01: powerful to you when it comes to the Sabbath?
18:10
SPEAKER_00: I think the one that instantly came to mind and often does is Psalm 4610,
18:15
SPEAKER_00: be still and know that I am God,
18:17
which I take to mean that there's all sorts of things that
18:20
we're going to miss
18:21
SPEAKER_00: about God unless we have a practice of slowness and rest.
18:26
We won't know God in certain dimensions of his character if we
18:31
don't have that
18:32
SPEAKER_00: practice of rest.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: That was really the premise of the book,
18:35
SPEAKER_00: The Rest of God,
18:36
SPEAKER_00: that it wasn't just the gift of rest,
18:37
SPEAKER_00: but the things about God that we discover when we rest.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: It's such a beautiful thing.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: There's so many facets to it.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
18:48
it seems like it'll really deepen our relationship with God and
18:51
help with our
18:52
SPEAKER_01: mental health,
18:53
SPEAKER_01: our family connectedness,
18:54
SPEAKER_00: all the good things.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: So Mark Buchanan, thank you so much for joining us today on Fulfilled.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: This was such a valuable conversation.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: One that I hope a lot of people take to heart.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, me too.
19:06
So thanks to all of you are awesome listeners for tuning in and
19:09
your support means so much.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: So if you enjoyed today's conversation,
19:13
SPEAKER_01: please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.
19:18
Stay inspired,
19:18
keep trusting in God's plan for your life,
19:21
and we'll see you next time.