Lectio
“The root idea of Sabbath is simple as rain falling, basic as breathing. It’s that all living things — and many nonliving things too — thrive only by an ample measure of stillness.”
— Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath
Meditatio
Our bodies require rest in order to function at their optimum capacity. Rest, in between periods of strenuous activity, is where healing happens. It’s where strength is built, where resilience and immunity increase. Strenuous activity breaks our bodies down, and rest builds them back up again. The same is true of our minds.
Our minds require rest just as much as our bodies do. They do not have an infinite capacity for strenuous labor any more than our muscles, ligaments, or tendons do. We cannot push our minds to their limits day in and day out without a break, without them shutting down, or at least slowing. While it is easy to imagine how to rest our bodies — all we have to do is stop using them — our minds seem to run constantly, whether we like it or not, even when we sleep.
We are invited to observe the Sabbath, not merely as a day of the week, a date on the calendar, but as a way to slow down and to receive the gift of grace awaiting us, promised us, and quietly emerging from within us as God’s gift of God’s very self in and as our very souls.
This invitation to rest is not merely an invitation to slow down, to heal and recover from our toils. It is an invitation to participate in God’s own nature within us. It is an invitation to relinquish what Adam and Eve grasped after in the garden — which is to try to be like God without the participation of God — something our restless hearts reenact without ceasing, and to open to God’s holiness, God’s faithfulness, and God’s glory so that these qualities may emerge in and as our souls, created in the image and likeness of that same God.
Sabbath is an invitation to be like God with God.
It is an invitation to participate in God’s holy cycle of creation and rest, and to conform ourselves to God’s nature in us waiting patiently, quietly to emerge when our striving ceases. It is an invitation to be still, to breathe, and to settle down into our true selves like rain water settles into the earth.
Oratio
living water
flow through me
saturate my soul
nourish me
with mercy
replenish me
with grace
living water
flow through me
saturate God’s soil
Contemplatio
What is one thing your restless heart keeps reaching for that only stillness can give?
Related Scripture
“For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” — Isaiah 30:15 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Cherished Emptiness: Creating a Sabbath in Your Heart With Macrina Wiederkehr, which explores how creating interior space — a Sabbath of the heart — allows God’s presence to settle into us, a natural companion to this post’s meditation on the soul emerging when striving ceases.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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