In Step With The Spirit?

The season we are in has highlighted several themes that I have repeatedly encountered as I’ve engaged with leaders under pressure.. areas where there is a rising hunger and curiosity.

– Emotional health and maturity 

– Sabbath rhythms and sustainability

– A theology of love (relational emphasis)

– Meaning and purpose (which I interpret as covenant & kingdom) – we find meaning in relationship with God.. covenant, and purpose in the responsibility he gives us. Which is to represent God’s kingdom of hope, joy, and peace.

– Family on mission – that the extended household is the key to mission. (from a temple emphasis to oikos)

I’m sure you will be identifying other themes – which I’d love to hear

A deep hunger for Sabbath. 

Augustine of Hippo famously said ‘Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.’ 

There is a crisis of meaning and purpose .. the western dream of a world progressing through science and education to a perfect society is shattered, and people are looking for those who have got both meaning and purpose.. people with a secure identity and clear vocation.  Of course, at our best, we are those people. 

But my take on the West is that the church forsook our identity as a distinct sabbath people a long time ago, and that as a consequence consumerism has been allowed to run amok. Including in our churches.

Some are realising that aspects of the way we have modelled life, leadership and community are unsustainable and not what Jesus modelled.

Sabbath is God’s gift to our mental health 

Sabbath is Gods gift to our mental, physical and spiritual health, but we have for the most part consigned it as an Old Testament tradition that was superseded by the New Testament in which we are called to expend ourselves for the Kingdom, because we are somehow immortal if we are doing Gods will.

The fact is that Sabbath is the third commandment – above ‘don’t kill’ and ‘don’t practice adultery’. It is one of three commandments that are phrased in the affirmative :- ‘Remember to practice the sabbath..’  ie ‘do this.. and all will be well…’ and contains the longest set of related instructions.

That we have little to no deep understanding or consistent lifestyle that relates to Sabbath is clearly beginning to be a concern to some. I have witnessed more books being written on Sabbath than I ever remember.. or maybe just more attention being given to them. 

The secular/sacred divide of western thinking and practices has had an insidious way of affecting how we think about church. But (young folk especially) are evaluating these assumptions and instinctively looking for a way to live which acknowledges that everything is spiritual. 

Many are gaining a glimpse into the fact that a genuine Sabbath practice is the doorway to that integration. And that rather than being an outmoded Old Testament law, that Sabbath is God’s doorway to a sustainable and fully integrated spiritual life. 

This distracted, disconnected, alienated, and confused culture is evidence that Augustine of Hippo was definitely onto something. 

Sabbath represents a genuine resistance to the spirit of Empire, which demands that we work ourselves to the bone. Sabbath is the Kingdom equivalent of ‘sticking it to The Man.’ 

Jesus constantly tangled with Pharisees over their misuse and abuse of Sabbath.

I believe we are in another Exodus 20 moment. The 10 commandments were given to a people coming out of slavery.. and somehow the command to rest is as radical to our ears as it was to theirs.

Sabbath reflects God in his relationship with work and rest. We rest because God rested. 

In fact, we are made to work from rest and not to just rest from work. The Genesis account affirms that we don’t work to gain rest, instead, we are called to work from a place of rest.. this may sound like semantics, but it is the very definition of the Kingdom revolution we are seeking.

People are instinctively seeking Sabbath – because Sabbath was made for man, and woman… and we are lost and broken without it. 

Human beings come with a reset button

Human beings come with a reset button.. with a clear command to remember it .. and to use it at least once a week if not more.

Our personal journey towards a Sabbath rhythm has been a bumpy ride.. to say the least. All the strongholds of self-reliance come under siege. All the temptations to control, to over-functioning, to perfectionism, or to empire building in any aspect.. all these strongholds are weakened and their grip loosened if we practice Sabbath as God intended. 

I recall my first attempt at silence and solitude, I decided to go off-grid and have a Quiet day at Ashburnham Place. I drove there and immediately started on my little list of things I was going to do during the day. I had started ‘walking’ around the beautiful lake when God spoke to me with a question: ‘What are you doing Phil?’ “I’m going for a walk with you Lord’ I piously replied. God’s reply drew me to standstill and caused me to laugh out loud. ’I don’t walk that fast’ He said clearly. In response, I set out again, halved my pace while seeking to be more attentive to the Spirit and to my surroundings. I eventually came to rest in a field and sat on the grass whilst continuing to listen for the voice of the Spirit. I was feeling more quiet and I began to congratulate myself thinking I had got this silence and solitude thing nailed. In that place, I experience a vision in which I saw a trap door in the ground. I opened the trapdoor and looked down to see what looked like several layers of moving cogs and wheels all turning frantically. ‘What’s that Lord? I asked. “Those are the further levels of inner noise you have to work through” Came heavens reply.  I again laughed out loud, realising my naivety and pride. 

Peter Scazzero defines Sabbath as the process to ‘Stop, Rest, Delight and Contemplate’. 

Clearly, introverts rest differently from extroverts, so Sabbath looks very different for different people. But we know when rest and renewal has come. We know when we are working from a place of rest.. and when just hanging on for our next break. 

Take a moment to ask ‘do I have a consistent sabbath rhythm? Do I mostly work from rest? How might I arrange my day, week, month, and seasons to grow a rhythm of Stop, Rest, Delight, and Contemplate?  How might I more intentionally practice ‘walking in step with the Spirit?’.