Shabbat and Rest

The Holy Spirit first called me to rest when I was twenty-four years old. He showed me His shabbat (sabbath), and I began learning about what the Lord calls rest each Saturday. The simple step of saying yes to this changed my life. 

I am now thirty-seven and God is still teaching me about His rest. He is continually showing me what rest means to Him, how He invites us to it, and how He commands it. When we decide to be His people (Jew or Gentile) it is a marker to the outside world that we are His people and He is our God. 

When the Hebrew people made their covenant with God at Mount Horev, they agreed to God’s terms and conditions to keep His shabbat, just as He did after He formed all of creation. Sometimes they did this well, other times they didn’t. They are a picture of us today, as we wrestle with the demands of this world and the call of our Father to establish His reverse kingdom here on earth. One of the foundational elements of that kingdom is keeping the sabbath. God makes His position on this clear. He commands us to pause and rest in the ten commandments, and the sabbath is mentioned in scripture over one hundred and seventy-two times. 

God’s commandments are His love letter to us (Psalm 119) and Yeshua is the embodiment of that love. He showed us how to live out every single instruction and commandment God gives us, perfectly. I remember feeling really excited when I realized that Yeshua kept shabbat every week. I want to be like Him, so I decided to do the same. 

Yeshua was the definition of countercultural. He demonstrated a kingdom lifestyle here on earth. When you keep a sabbath you will do the same. Sabbath offends many. The mere suggestion of keeping a sabbath will cause people to want to oppose you. Often I have been asked “Why are you doing this?”, “What’s the point?”, “What a burden, that’s so inconvenient.”, “How do you get anything done without using your Saturday?”. Those are all valid questions and I understand them in such a fast-paced world where many feel taxed and maxed. I hope some of the insights below will address how the Lord gave me the answers to each of these questions over time. 

Here are the things I’ve learned about rest and the sabbath from the Lord:

It heals your body and your mind. Just like our body requires sleep every day and is refreshed and renewed in the morning, so too is our spirit refreshed through keeping the sabbath. Just as we are designed to sleep every night, our soul is designed to receive rest one day a week on shabbat. 

God honours the time you set aside, by bending time and space to help you achieve more on your work days. He has shown me how He is supernaturally sovereign over time, and can work miracles in the realm of time in my life. 

He blesses your finances. As you refrain from spending money on the sabbath, He pours out His provision in your life. This happens financially as well as in all other areas: relationally, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. He loves to lavish His gifts and good things upon us.

He meets on us shabbat. He has met me by His Spirit, through the beauty of His creation, through joy shared with friends and family, in naps, meals, and through His Word. 

His grace came over my ‘to do’ list. At first I thought it would be impossible to dedicate a whole day to resting when I had so much to do. Over time I saw I accomplished more with ease, in less time, as I started to keep shabbat. 

Plans and obligations can be adjusted to keep shabbat. This won’t always be easy but every time I have done this God has honoured it. When I have laid a ‘sacrifice’ before the Lord in order to keep shabbat, whether that be an opportunity, commitment, plan, trip, or obligation, He has blessed me, provided alternatives, and made me see that He has no restrictions. When the world has said ‘impossible’, He has answered my prayer for help with “All things are possible through Me". The best example I can give is when I was completing my masters degree. Our course work was completed in a two month intensive over three summers. That meant all week was dedicated to classes, with the evenings and weekends being dedicated to completing assignments and writing papers. The workload was heavy and intense. Still, God called me to keep shabbat. I remember sharing with my cohort that I would be taking Saturdays to rest and many laughed, some said it was crazy, others said it was impossible. God blessed this step of faith and enabled me to complete all of my assignments, receive top grades, and finish each semester rested, healthy, and without burnout.  

Shabbat is a double portion. Every week my mind, soul, body, and house are filled with more peace after I have kept shabbat. When I wake up Sunday morning to begin the week I feel like I have had two days of rest, instead of just one. God is so kind and so good, He gives us His abundance when we keep this time with Him.

What I have learned about rest recently:

Over the past week the Holy Spirit has been teaching me that His rest is also one of the weapons He gives us to push back darkness. God showed me that when people choose to abide in darkness, outside of Him and His design, they can’t access or obtain peace and rest. If you are God’s, He wants those two gifts to be markers of His presence and promise in your life. Peace and rest are intertwined. I don’t know about you, but I notice when someone is peaceful and at rest. Those qualities are incredibly attractive and countercultural. When I encounter people like this, I want to be around them and to know more about who they are and what they believe. To be at rest in our spirits and lives, we first have to practice resting in our week. The sabbath invites us to do that. Keeping the sabbath teaches up how to wield the weapon of rest. It defies the enemy by saying ‘I can rest in peace because I trust in my God.’.  Shabbat is the template that teaches our being to move through the remainder of the week at rest. It imprints a posture of rest into our hearts that we can carry forward into the other tasks and commitments we have. 

What scripture says about the sabbath:

Now I will leave you with some scriptures that share God’s heart for shabbat. I like to read the Complete Jewish Bible translation, but I encourage you to look these verses up in your own Bible to see what the Holy Spirit is saying to you there. 

“On the seventh day God was finished with His work which He had made, so He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. God blessed the seventh day and separated it as holy; because on that day God rested from all His work which He had created, so that it itself could produce.” - Genesis 2:2-3

 “Remember the day, Shabbat, to set it apart for God.”- Exodus 20:8

“‘Work is to be done on six days; but the seventh day is a Shabbat of complete rest, a holy convocation; you are not to do any kind of work; it is a Shabbat for Adonai, even in your homes.’” - Leviticus 23:3

“[…]and keep My shabbats holy; and they will be a sign between Me and you, so that you will know that I am Adonai your God.”- Ezekiel 20:20

“If you hold back your foot on Shabbat
from pursuing your own interests on My holy day;
if you call Shabbat a delight,
Adonai’s holy day, worth honoring;
then honor it by not doing your usual things
or pursuing your interests or speaking about them.

If you do, you will find delight in Adonai —
I will make you ride on the heights of the land
and feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Ya‘akov,
for the mouth of Adonai has spoken.” -Isaiah 13-14

In His Rest and Shalom,

Jennalise