Sabbath, Sufficiency, and the Limits of Being Human
As I check off the items on my Sunday to-do list, I feel the familiar rush of anxiety creeping in. There’s laundry to fold (or stuff into drawers), groceries to order, lunches to prep, texts to respond to and a subtle restless sense that I don’t have a grasp on it all. Even with the best intentions, it’s easy to slide into striving. Easy to think that if I just get enough done, maybe I’ll secure a sense of peace.
But I’m slowly brought back to the heart of the matter. Sabbath is not simply about earning a break. It is about remembering. Remembering that God is the Creator, and we are created. That we have limits, and God does not. That the world is sustained not by our effort, but by God’s provision.
At the beginning of Scripture, God sets the rhythm: “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy” (Genesis 2:2–3). God didn’t rest because he was tired, but to mark something as complete. Sabbath begins in delight. In enoughness. In the quiet satisfaction of a world not yet touched by toil.
But the story doesn’t stay in Eden. By the time we reach Deuteronomy, the people of God are living with the memory of enslavement. They are no longer resting in a garden but recovering from a system that demanded everything and gave nothing in return. “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out… Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day” (Deuteronomy 5:15).
Friends, Sabbath is no longer just about creation. It is also about liberation. It is about the type of rest that becomes a protest. Sabbath was a way for the Israelites to remember that they no longer belonged to Pharaoh or to systems of endless output. They belonged to a God who rescued. We belong to this God. To courageously stop, to rest, to delight… this act tells the truth about a God who does not enslave, and about a people who are no longer enslaved.
Sabbath helps us remember who we are and whose we are.
This rhythm expanded in Israel’s life through the Sabbath year, or Shemitah. Every seventh year, the land was to rest. Fields were left unsown. Debts were released. Ordinary patterns of control and productivity were interrupted (Leviticus 25; Deuteronomy 15). It wasn’t just about rest. It was about trust. Yes, the people prepared in advance, but they still had no guarantee of what would follow. After the year ended, crops had not yet sprouted. Re-entry required waiting. Can you imagine living in the tension between what had been and what had not yet come? This is what Sabbath still invites us to.
God anticipated their fear (and ours). “You may ask, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?’ I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years” (Leviticus 25:20–22). Rest required not just preparation, but risky dependence. Not just a plan, but faith in the provision of a God who sees ahead and actively makes way for what is yet unseen to us.
And yet, underneath it all, there is another kind of waiting. A deeper debt. One we could never repay, no matter how hard we work or how carefully we prepare. And that is where Christ meets us- the One who fulfills the law, cancels every debt, and offers rest not just for our bodies but for our souls. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Jesus doesn’t demand we earn our place in his presence. He becomes our rest. He becomes enough for our lack.
Depending on where you live, who you live with, and the natural rhythms of your week, Sabbath may take a different shape. But the temptation is the same: to believe that rest must be earned. But Sabbath is not a reward. It is a gift from the kindest Gift Giver. As Psalm 127:2 reminds us, “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep.” Rest is not the fruit of hustling and keeping everything together. It is the fruit of being kept. Of being held.
Sabbath doesn’t invite us to retreat from reality. It invites us to return to what is most true… that we are not limitless, and we were never meant to be. Our limits are not a problem to fix. They are a place to meet God. It’s the scary-to-enter place where we’re reminded that the world will not fall apart if we stop, because (surprise!) we were never the ones holding it together in the first place. (This is an especially hard truth for me.)
Questions for reflection:
What story do I believe about rest? That it must be earned? That it’s indulgent? That it means I’m falling behind?
Where am I still living in bondage to fear, the pressure to perform, or the need to prove my worth?
How do I typically respond when I bump into my limits—avoid, resist, ignore, or receive them?
What would it look like to practice rest as an act of truth-telling—about who God is and who I am?
Where might God be asking me to stop and rest, even while the work remains unfinished?
Sabbath was never intended to be a break from real life. Sabbath is the truest part of life. It is the place where God is remembered as Creator, as Deliverer, as Sustainer, and as the One who has paid every debt. And in that remembering, we are free to be what we are: created, loved, and held.
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There’s room for you here,
Lauren
P.S. If you want to explore these themes more deeply in your own life, consider booking a spiritual direction session today. Spiritual Direction is a space to pause, reflect, and pay attention to what God might be stirring in you.