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Practicing Sabbath as a Family

kenziedegraaf

Looking to start practicing the Sabbath as a family? Feeling worn out, over-scheduled, and just plain too busy? Keep reading to see how we have been creating rhythm and rest in our family in honoring the Sabbath and enjoying a "rest day."


church in a meadow - sabbath


Remembering Rest is a Command and a Gift

"It's Shabbat!" A phrase you'll hear us yell aloud in our home as Saturday night dinner roles around each week. We finish up the chores we were working on, and get ready to to enjoy dinner out as a family. For months now, enter Saturday evening, we begin a 24 hour rest period as a family, but it wasn't always this way. Let me tell you how we got here...


“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Exodus 20:8 (ESV)


Last year, our church women's Bible study studied the 10 commandments. It was a wonderful study written by one of the women from our church. It was during this study, and then also later in a podcast I listened to, that it was pointed out that God commands us to rest and to keep the Sabbath. One day of the week set aside to rest and cease working. A theme kept arising pointing out the fact that we don't read the other commandments such as, "do not steal" and think, "Oh that's optional." Or, "do not commit adultery" and think, "that's nice for others." But yet we do that with the Sabbath. For whatever reason, we don't take rest that seriously. We have lots of "excuses" for why we can't-or won't, stop working.


When God institues Sabbath* in the form of what we now call, the 10 Commandments, the Israelites were just coming out of 400 years of slavery! 400 years with day in and day out work. 400 years of no rest! Can you imagine? We live in a culture today that recognizes two days of "rest." The history of the weekned is realtively new introduced in America by Henry Ford ultimately as an effort to feed consumerism,** but instead of taking two days to rest-which is actually outside of God's design for work, we now sadly take none. Our culture, in its fast paced go-go-go mentality, where work is vitually in our pockets everywhere we go-we forget to rest at all.


We had tried "doing Sabbath" as a family in the past, but kept "quitting" as things weren't consistant or actually feeling restful. That is until we took it more seriously, and set aside a 24 hour period to intentionally quit the daily rhythm, prepare our home and schedules, figure out what we would and wouldn't do as a family and then start practicing it. And now we are months into our new rhtym and we love it. We are not perfect, but we keep learning and growing as we enjoy Shabbat. Here are a few things we have been learning along the way....


Set a Start & End Time

The day of the week that you make a rest day is not nearly as important as actually making it "holy" or set apart. For us, Sunday going to church as a family was already fun, restful, and a day that we could "count" on being together and not feeling like we needed to "get things done." For probably over a year now we have been working toward the idea of Sabbath, but figuring out which day and then when it started and ended provided a challenge. As a stay at home mama, sometimes I felt like the weekend was "my time-to get projects done" as I had daddy to help with the kiddos.


While that may be true in theory, if I did that they when would I ever rest? I knew this wouldn't work, and yet having some weekend time to get ready for the week and to do projects is still valid and important. That's when we put a 24 hour time frame to our Shabbat. Inspired by the Jewish observation of Shabbat, where a day is seen to start in the evening, (ever notice that in the Creation story?)


"...And there was evening and there was morning, the first day." Genesis 1:5b


we start Shabbat in the evening. We start right before dinner on Saturday and end the same time on Sunday. That provides 3 meals, dinner, breakfast and lunch, to rest and enjoy. And for us it allowed me to not cook dinner on Saturday but enough time to cook on Sunday, and then use that evening to prepare for the week.


night sky - starting sabbath at night

Focus on Do’s Instead of Don’ts

Another important thing that I am still really grappling with is focusing on what we do and do not do on the Sabbath-in other words what is rest? I'm reminded of Jesus words to a legalistic minded group,


"And he said to them, "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Mark 2:27 ESV


Learning not to be legalistic about what's allowed is an art. And while lots of people have written about Sabbath and share their personal "do not" lists, I really tend to think this part takes wisdom from the Lord to personally examine your own heart and life. One that I'm still fine tuning.


That being said, we have some easy no's that we follow. We don't do work; daddy is home from work, and we don't do normal chores. The dishes wait, the laundry waits, cleaning, and most cooking waits. Are there times when we make exceptions? Yes, more than once I've had something like a child who threw up in the middle of the night and I needed to do laundry. Or the occasional weekend when my hubby is on call. But generally speaking we just say no to things that are not life giving and restful.

Instead, we like to focus on what we GET to do. Now this can be different for everyone. As mentioned we start at night. We usually make a big deal of the start of Shabbat and cheer- "It's Shabbat!" for our kids. We finish up chores, we get cleaned up and get ready for dinner. After dinner, if we are going to watch a movie ever in the week this is when we like to do it-this is a real treat as we watch very little TV/shows/YouTube during the week. The next day, we like to sleep in (think 7am instead of 5:30am with small children). We like to have a little coffee date from a local coffee shop and take that to church with us. We usually do a fun breakfast of donuts or crossants from the grocery store bakery or I will even make muffins ahead of time.


We get to go to church as a family. Then after church, a couple local restaurants often have kids eat free on Sundays, and some offer discounted gift cards, so we grab a little lunch and often invite a family, or 2 or 3 or 4 to join us after church. The rest of the afternoon the kids take their nap, which is when I normally I work out, but instead I will opt for a bubble bath or a nap, reading etc. We PLAY as a family and with our kids and we just enjoy our time. This is also often a day when there are family and friend invites or birthday parties. So we focus on relationships this day as well!


family walking down a path - Sabbath


Rest Motivates Hard Work

This is not the first time we have worked on making Sabbath a part of our family routine. We have been tweaking this for well over a year, but once I reframed my thinking, set the 24 hours in place, and focused on changing some areas that were hang ups for our family, we have been way more consistent, and Sabbath has felt much more restful and truly set apart.


At first practicing Shabbat was weird and actually very difficult. There were things that I wanted to be doing, and this still happens, that I had said "no" to on the Sabbath. At first there were cleaning projects I didn't get done, or work I wanted to be doing. And I let that feeling sit with me the first couple of weeks. I let it be uncomfortable, and you know what? By the time Sunday night/Monday roled around I was super motivated to get it done.


Because we have a set time to start Shabbat, you will often find me on Saturday afternoon speed cleaning. Not rushing in a sloppy way, but excited to clean my house and finish the things I didn't make it to during the week! Excited to be able to stop chores and enjoy a time of rest and togetherness as a family feels like a reward for a job well done. There's something invigorating about knowing I just need to finish something up and then I can be "done." As housekeeping can be so cyclical, and at times feel "never done," having a point in the week where it feels "finished" feels very satisfying! And knowing I don't want to look at a mess for the next 24 hours, and want to enjoy being in a clean home is SUPER motivating to me!


Without having Shabbat in place I fall into a, "I'll just do it tomorrow" mindset. Where you can always push things off just one more day. With Shabbat, I feel motivated to get something done since I "can't" do it tomorrow. As I dream on Sunday afternoons I look forward to the week ahead. My husband and I spend some time planning and talking through the week. There's time to mentally and physically prep. Shabbat feels like a reset button in the crazy cycle of business. I am so grateful God wants us to rest and I'm looking forward to growing in this practice as a family!


Do you practice Sabbath as a family? Let me know in the comments below. If so, what are some of your favorite things you "get to" do that day?


Further reading about Sabbath and Rest

There are many books written on Sabbath rest. The following books talk about Sabbath at some point, and many of these are written regarding spiritual disciplines as a whole and include Sabbath as just one of many spiritual practices.


Rhythms of Renewal by Rebekah Lyons

Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster

10 Words to Live By by Jen Wilkin


And a book I am excited to start reading on the concept of rest and peace, but I technically haven't started yet is...

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer & John Ortberg

Notes


*Though we see the Sabbath command in the 10 commandments, God models Sabbath rest before this at creation as He Himself rests on the 7th day.



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