How do you handle breaks and pauses along the journey? What's your attitude toward growth?
There are two main types of rest that we can choose in life. The cultural "day off", and the counter-cultural Sabbath. The day off is what people talk about and experience most. It's a day that means you don't have to go into the office or your traditional place of work and you can work on other projects. You can run errands, do the dishes and other chores, and it generally is a day to catch up on things that you haven't had time for the rest of the week. And then there's the Sabbath.
Sabbath rest is different. It's active, disciplined rest with boundaries intended to center around the idea that God is in control and still at work even when we're not, and remind ourselves of His goodness. With Sabbath rest, you're doing whatever you can to create space to slow down. It's not a day for errands, chores, catch-up, or anything like that. It's a day to rest and worship. Have fun. Explore. Play. It means that there's a lot of work on the front end to create space for true rest to happen. It also means it's more than just a checklist item of, quote, "having a day off." It also has nothing to do with how busy you are. Often it can feel like you don't have the margin to rest, but the original command surrounding the Sabbath was "remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy."
Holy means set apart or other. In our culture, it requires those exact things for a Sabbath rest to occur. It needs to be set apart. It needs to be remembered and planned for. And it needs to be different or other than our regular rhythms. It needs to be a pause.
You're on the way. You see a sign that there's a stop up ahead. You've got enough gas to make it to the next waypoint but here's the question – should you pause for a bathroom break, snack, and stretch, or do you power through? Can the kids make it? Can you?
I've been on road trips where, as you're driving, it seems like every chance for a stop, someone has to pause for a bathroom break. It can feel like you're never going to make it to where you're going. I am someone who loves efficiency, so when stops are drawn out and leisurely, it really interrupts the ability to stay on schedule and arrive on time.
A couple of years ago I realized that I was ruining part of the trip. I was so consumed with speed and efficiency that I never took enough time to actually take a break. I was so caught up with the stop being as fast as possible that it wasn't enough of a pause for me to mentally stop and enjoy where we were. The last few road trips we've taken as a family I've really tried to loosen my grip on the journey. Instead of expecting the stops to be quick, fast, and efficient, I am trying to let them be a little slower. I stretch my legs, I enjoy the time to run around with the boys for a couple of minutes, we catch up. What I've noticed is that when I'm not stressed about the stop, it does two things. First, it makes the stop more effective. It breaks up the drive more so that I'm more ready to hit the road again. Second, it makes the stop more enjoyable in and of itself. It means I can enjoy my boys being rowdy for a moment and making jokes and walking slow and doing all the things young boys do when they have tons of pent-up energy from sitting in a car do.
How do you feel about pauses? Do you try to rush through them? Do you try to make them as efficient as possible? What about your time with Jesus? Is it just a pit stop to endure and hustle through, or do you take those moments and enjoy them for what they are? I've had times where I'm just jumping through hoops to check off the box of what I think it should look like to follow Jesus. I quickly read a chapter or two in the Bible, write a half-hearted prayer in a journal, and then go to bed feeling like, "I did it." Don't get me wrong – sometimes consistency even when I'm not fully engaged still has its merits. But I wonder if our propensity to make things efficient and effective everywhere in our lives means that we're going a little too fast in our moments throughout the day.
How do we handle interruptions? Breaks? Some of them are obviously prayer moments and time spent with Jesus, and sometimes the metaphor of the journey is that your body needs a break. It needs to stop for a second and regroup. Just like on a long road trip it's impossible to do it without taking breaks and stopping to fill up, stretch, etc., so it is with our actual lives. We need to stop, to allow breaks, and to let those breaks be what they need to be and not just rush them because they're essential.
Here's the hard truth about growth – it's going to take as long as it's going to take. Driving 500 miles will take as long as it's going to take. Sure, you can shave a few minutes here and there, but really, we're not talking about cutting the time in half, we're talking about making a 8.5 hour drive potentially 8 hours. Is it worth the stress? I heard this phrase recently – you can't microwave maturity.
I wonder if sometimes we attempt to take some of the essential moments of our lives and move past them as soon as we can in attempts to mark them as complete. Maybe it's just me. But sometimes, resting is the most spiritual thing we can do, yet we feel a sense of guilt or shame because we're not producing something.
So here's my challenge to you – how can you embrace the stops? The pauses? The moments of interruption? Instead of rushing the journey, how can you embrace every part of it, even the parts that feel like they're getting in the way?
And by doing so, I think we'll find ourselves in a better place along the journey.