Individuals are burning out and families are falling apart under the strain and rush to "have it all". The word busy so effortlessly flows from our tongue in response to how we are doing. Work has become a god to people placing their worth and identity in titles and status.
God gives those who delight in the Sabbath a great promise:
“If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, IF YOU CALL THE SABBATH A DELIGHT AND THE LORD’S HOLY DAY HONORABLE, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, THEN YOU WILL FIND YOUR JOY IN THE LORD, and I WILL CAUSE YOU TO RIDE ON THE HEIGHTS OF THE LAND AND TO FEAST ON THE INHERITANCE OF YOUR FATHER JACOB.”
—Isaiah 58:13, 14.
This passage suggests the Sabbath is a doorway through which we can experience the best things in life: we “ride on the heights” and “feast on the inheritance.”
The Sabbath is God's answer. It is designed to protect us from the dangers of physical exhaustion, psychological stress and the interpersonal alienation which result from idolization and over-identification with work.
It's even easy as a stay-at-home mom to get caught up in being busy taking care of everyone else that we forget to take care of ourselves. But what I've learned, is if I don't take a Sabbath, a little "me-time," I don't have much to give to those around me.
"Sabbath keeping is the primary discipline that helps us live within the limits of our humanity and to honor God as our Creator. It is the key to a life lived in sync with the rhythms that God himself built into our world. Yet it is the discipline that seems hardest for us to live out."
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