God’s Order: Take a Break

by Dr Raymond Perrier · Published January 5, 2024 · Updated January 5, 2024

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I hope that, by the time you are reading this, you are in a suitably relaxed frame of mind. Whether running a family, running a business or running a parish, December was probably a busy month, preparing for the end of the year. But by now you may have finally had some time to stop, relax and unwind.

A Jesuit friend once asked me which of the Ten Commandments was the one most frequently ignored. I ran through them in my mind, fearful that whatever I answered might betray something about my own weaknesses more than about the community at large. If I named envy, or adultery or blasphemy what might that be saying about me? But he put me out of my misery: number four, the injunction to keep the Sabbath holy.

He went on to clarify that the failing was not so much about whether we went to church, or kept arcane rabbinical rules about not rescuing a donkey from a ditch. Rather it was the general principle of taking time to rest.

It is worth noting that this is something that farmers completely understand. If you exploit your land or your livestock without interruption, it will soon stop producing. But if, for example, you leave your fields to lie fallow one year out of seven, you will get a much better yield from them.

There are, of course, people who don’t need to be told to rest: those who are ill, or elderly, or unable to work even though they want to. And I have no doubt that there are people out there (often, it seems, employees of a government department) who need to be encouraged to work more, not to rest more!

But my guess is that, if you are reading this article, you are the kind of person who is pretty focused and active, whether in paid work or voluntary work. That’s fantastic and I would be the last person to discourage you.

But do you have the right balance between rest and activity? What I am asking you to notice is how restorative it has been for you to take some time out and really rest over the Christmas period. And how much more active/committed/efficient/motivated will you be when you do return to work in January?

But don’t wait 50 weeks before you next recharge your batteries. We all know from our cellphones that, when we let the batteries run too low, it is much harder to get them charged again. The same is true for us.

So that is why God not just permitted us but in fact commanded us to rest one day in seven. Indeed, God thought that Sabbath was such a good idea that he actually took a day off himself. “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:11).

If you have ever had the privilege of spending time with an observant Jewish family, you will have a sense of what Sabbath means. It is not a day off work just so you can go shopping or wash the car or do your tax return. It is a day off work on which you do not work. Hence the debate between Jesus and the rabbis about rescuing donkeys from ditches (see Luke 14:1-6).

Reboot yourself

As I hope you have discovered over Christmas, actually doing nothing is sometimes essential. We cannot press our reset buttons if we are so busy doing a million other things that we do not notice the need for it. Perhaps, like me, you have a laptop and generally just put it to “sleep” rather than going through a full shut down. And then over time you find it has become more and more sluggish.

When I report this to our IT guys they usually ask me: “When did I last do a full shut down?”, and I explain that I have not done so because I have been too busy. But then I make the time for that proper shut down and after I reboot the computer it is back to its speedy performance.

The same applies to humans — a proper shut down, a detachment from all that gets in the way, and then a full reboot. Like computers, we also need the time and space to switch off, and we can get it from sitting in the sun, or going on a gentle walk, or reading a book for pleasure, or listening to music. When we do this, we notice that as we slow down, our muscles relax, our heartbeat moderates, perhaps even our blood pressure improves. It is the time for letting the field lie fallow before we start to grow again.

Some people have learnt how to do this; others need a bit of coaxing. Dear friends of mine recently cajoled me into a weekend away in the Drakensberg mountains. Even though they are only three hours’ drive from where I live, and I really do love the mountains, I am ashamed to admit to how rarely I visit them. So I accepted the invitation.

But unlike other weekends that I have spent there in the past, this was not in a comfortable hotel but at a rudimentary camp site, completely off the grid. So suddenly I was forced to keep the phone off (I couldn’t recharge it), my laptop stayed in my bag, and for 48 hours emails and messages went unanswered. I thought it would be stressful. Instead, it was bliss.

New Year’s resolution

So I am making a New Year’s resolution, and I encourage you to join me in this, especially if you are the kind of person who is always very busy and very driven. Find time to switch to neutral or at least to idle in first gear. Give yourself permission to listen to the birdsong, to laze in the garden, to stroll around on the beach or in a park, to sit in your favourite chair and listen to the music you love.

To honour the principle of the Sabbath we need to do this at least once a week. Perhaps a Sunday, or indeed a Saturday (the original Sabbath day), does not work for you, so choose a day which does. And observe it.

“Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work.” Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, because even God knew that we can do more when we are rested.