"Snugs," 8x10, oil on panel.
Artists tend to have a complicated relationship with their work, but if you asked me to pick one painting I’ll always love, it would be this one.
I don’t remember the exact circumstances, only that it was cold and I’d given up my room to my sister, Hannah, who was spending the night with her little family. There were plenty of warm spots for me to cozy up in, but the moon was bright and the view was pretty, so in a bout of romanticism I’d picked the couch under our drafty picture windows.
The next morning I woke—barely—to my sister snuggling her freshly bathed one-year-old into my blankets. By the time she came back with a warm outfit for the baby, I was a goner.
Fast forward two years: I was states away, homesick, and wildly busy with work, hanging this brand-new painting in my cubicle. It was the most extra office decor ever, I know, but I needed some external reminder that life was not always so lonely and hectic.
I needed a reminder of rest.
Ironically, I’d move back home in another two years because a reminder was no longer cutting it. For various reasons, I succumbed to burnout, the infamous ambition-killer. My habits had become unsustainable, and I returned to that seat under the picture windows exhausted in every sense.
Shortly after, Hannah happened to recommend The Common Rule, by Justin Whitmel Early. It’s a book about the impact of habits on our spiritual health, but what specifically caught my attention was the way it reframed the concept of “Sabbath.”
If you’re like me, you grouped the Sabbath in with other Old Testament practices—things that served their purpose, but don’t really apply to me as a 21st century, New Covenant Christian living under the rule of grace and with a hundred other things demanding my attention. But after being stretched so thin, it seemed that I needed to give “Sabbath”—and my habits—a closer look.
The meaning of Sabbath
Do you know where we find the first instance of Sabbath in the Bible? Not in the laws of Exodus or Deuteronomy, but on the very first pages of the redemption story.
Genesis 2:2-3 says:
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, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
You probably already knew that, but before The Common Rule pushed me in this direction, I had never critically considered the significance of the first Sabbath.
God is all-powerful, all sufficient, and infinite—He doesn’t exactly get tired. And yet, after creating the world, He rested. Why? Because, even before we existed, our omniscient Creator knew our limitations and modeled the practice of rest for us. It wasn’t because He needed it. It’s because we do.
When God ordained the Sabbath for Israel in Exodus, He said it was to serve as a sign (the Hebrew word is also translated monument, or omen,) to remind Israel that “I am YHWH who sets you apart.” (Exodus 31:12-13).
Sabbath wasn’t just a lazy Saturday. It was an inconvenient pause in routine, an act of faith and humility. Sabbath was an interactive reminder of the sovereignty and sufficiency of our God, who alone provides what we need and is worthy of total obedience.
The Sabbath was a rest of remembrance.
But that’s not all. As Israel toiled to meet the impossible standards of Old Testament Law, the Sabbath was both a much-needed, immediate rest and a foreshadowing of the rest to come from Christ’s fulfillment of the Law (Hebrews 4).
The Sabbath was a gracious gift from the holy, righteous God, who knew the limitations of His creation, and who was working to bring about the Messiah’s eternal redemption.
From this birds-eye view, the symbolism of the Sabbath is beautiful. It teaches us that rest is a good gift, and rest for the specific purpose of remembering our place in the story of redemption—even if it’s inconvenient—is necessitated by our limited nature.
Back to the the future
So what does all that mean for the burned-out girl under the picture window?
I’m not an advocate of adherence to the Old Testament Sabbath. The apostle Paul gave us plenty of council on why that isn’t necessary (Colossians 2:16-17, Romans 14:5, Galatians 5:13-15). But in studying the Sabbath, I found my own practices of rest (or lack thereof) to be proclaiming an improper doxology.
Reflecting on the concept of Sabbath exposed my tendencies toward prideful industriousness. That’s not to imply that all industriousness is prideful, or even that I accomplish all that much—I really don’t! But somehow I still manage to wrap up what I do accomplish in a layer of self-importance. I quickly fall under the illusion that I am self-sufficient, and things won’t happen if I’m not the one making them happen.
Even more convicting was how it revealed that my usual practices of “rest” are more like practices of distraction. I easily fill my free time with mindless consumption to the exclusion of rest that grounds me in truth. Trying to find refreshment in those habits is like trying to draw water from a puddle while a deep, clear well stands nearby. It’s no wonder I found myself exhausted after just a few years in that lifestyle.
Of course, there’s more to the story, but in many ways, a lack of “Sabbath”—rest of remembrance—kept me both from being sustained and from having the presence of mind to recognize my needs in the first place. I was too distracted to see the inevitable crash ahead.
Psalm 103:14 says “[God] knows our frames. He remembers that we are only dust.” The only one who needed to be reminded of my limitations was me.
We’re creeping up on nine years since my sister captured the reference photo for this painting, and as I write this looking out the same picture windows, I find myself humbled and reveling in God’s abundant generosity. Knowing our helpless limitations, God still determined to redeem us, to let us participate in His plan, and to incorporate into that plan the prodigal gift of rest.
Food for thought:
The Common Rule, by Justin Whitmel Early
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