Thought Exercise on Rhythms Of Rest

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Uneasy Lies the Head

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Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 5:12, Proverbs 3:24, Matthew 11:28-30

It was William Shakespeare, in 1597, who had Henry IV complaining about the duties of kingship. “How many thousands of my poorest subjects,” the king lamented, “are at this hour asleep!” He goes on to...

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The Importance of Building Margin Into your Life

Author

Daniel Im

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Scripture

Exodus 18:13-24 , Leviticus 25:1-7, 1 Kings 19:4-12, Mark 6:30-32 , Luke 10:38-42, Psalm 46:10

[D]o you have margin in your life, like the white spaces between these words and the edges of the page? Having margin is about intentionally scheduling white space in your calendar to pray, rest, read...

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A Coca-Cola Philosophy & Empty Calories

Author

A. J. Swoboda

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Studies reveal that 37 percent of Americans take fewer than seven days of vacation a year. In fact, only 14 percent take vacations that last longer than two weeks. Americans take the shortest paid vac...

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The Two Runners

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Matthew 6:33, Colossians 3:23, Psalm 39:6, Luke 12:15, Acts 15:29, Matthew 5:14-16, Ephesians 2:10, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:62, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, James 1:12, Romans 8:16-17, Galatians 2:20

The true story of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, two British sprinters who qualified for the 1924 Olympic Games, illustrates two contrasting approaches to life and identity. Abrahams was driven by ...

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A Sabbath Box

Author

Wayne Muller

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 20:8-10, Luke 10:41-42

Make a Sabbath box. When you set aside time for Sabbath—whether it is an hour, a morning, or a day—put in the box those things you do not want to use…. You can also use the Sabbath box to hold all the...

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Wasting Time with Thoreau

Author

Arthur C. Brooks

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The other afternoon, in an effort to avoid doing my work, I picked up Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. It turned out to be a fitting choice, as Thoreau has quite a bit to say about wasting time. “The cos...

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Re-creating the Conditions of Earth

Author

K.J. Ramsey

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 50:19-21 , Exodus 14:10-31, Isaiah 40:28-31, Matthew 7:24-27 , 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Psalm 1:1-3

In the desert outside of Tucson, scientists dreamed up an experiment to re-create the conditions of earth for space, when and if the earth could not be made great again. The biosphere was a little wor...

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When Slowing Down Becomes Essential

Author

A. J. Swoboda & Nijay K. Gupta

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Jean-Dominique Bauby was widely esteemed as one of France’s most prolific and influential journalists. His work widely shaped the quickly evolving cultural landscape of Europe during the 1980s and ’90...

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Our Bodies Need Silence

Author

Rick Hamlin

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Your body knows about schedules. It gets used to those times of day when it says, Feed me right now. I’m hungry, and those times of night when it says, Get me to bed. I’m exhausted. Your body will spe...

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Three Images for Retreat

Author

Ruth Haley Barton

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Scripture

Mark 6:30, Luke 4:, Hosea 2:14-15, Hosea 11:1-2, Psalm 23:1–3, Luke 4:1–13

Ron Roheiser points out three images for retreat used in Scripture that meet us in our yearning; all of them apply in different ways at different times. ● There is the lonely place to which Jesus ...

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The Creation of Artificial Time

Author

John Mark Comer

Keywords

The Passing of Time

We all know our world has sped up to a frenetic pace. We feel it in our bones, not to mention on the freeway. But it hasn’t always been this way. Let me nerd out on you for a few minutes just to show...

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True Rest

Author

Andy Crouch

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True rest seems elusive for most Americans. Only one in seven adults (14%) set aside a day a week for rest. And on that one day a week, what do they do? Mostly, they work. More than four in ten say th...

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Doing Rather Than Being

Author

A. J. Swoboda

Keywords

Sabbath is that ancient idea and practice of intentional rest that has long been discarded by much of the church and our world. Sabbath is not new. Sabbath is just new to us. Historically, Christians ...

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Never Leaving Their Work

Author

A. J. Swoboda

Keywords

Because of the modern rhythms of work that are mediated through personal computers and phones, people, in the words of one cultural commentator, “leave the office, but they do not leave their work. Th...

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Joy With Flesh On

Author

Ashley Hales

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:31, Exodus 16:4–5, Isaiah 40:31, Mark 10:14–15, John 15:5,11, Psalm 16:11

I have a photo of one of my children: on a day of pure sunshine, he is running down the hillside, leading with his chest, his smile and stride wide as his speed picks up. Running is pure delight. Agai...

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The Value of Rest

Author

Gerald G. May

Keywords

Rest

Today many of us have been [so] conditioned by efficiency that times [of sitting on the porch] feel unproductive, irresponsible, lazy, even selfish. We know we need rest, but we can no longer see the ...

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Embodiment as an Antidote to Screen Fatigue

Author

Ashley Hales

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 2:7, Exodus 20:8–10, 1 Kings 19:5–7, John 1:14, Matthew 11:28–29, Psalm 34:8

In this short excerpt, author Ashley Hales describes the disembodying reality of being glued to screens, and a few ways to become back in touch with our embodied selves: Perhaps we look to a scree...

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What We Love to Do & How We Love to Be

Author

Stephen W. Smith

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In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares insights on the topic of rest from the poet David Whyte: [The] poet David Whyte opens our minds and hearts to rest when he writ...

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Sabbath Begins in Rest

Author

Ashley Hales

Keywords

Sabbath begins in rest. The Jewish people practice Shabbat sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. It begins and ends in the dark, where rest (not hustle) is the first word.

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Struggling to Rest

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 2:2-3, Exodus 20:8, Deuteronomy 5:12-15, Nehemiah 13:15-22, Psalm 127:2

Rest has never been one of America’s greatest strengths. According to one study, only one in seven adults (14%) have set aside an entire day for the purpose of rest. For those who do set aside an enti...

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The Sabbath for the Descendants of Slaves

Author

Cole Arthur Riley

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People think the sabbath is antiquated; I think it will save us for ourselves… When we rest, we do so in memory of rest denied. We receive what has been withheld from ourselves and our ancestors. And...

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Keeping Time with the Spirit

Author

James K. A. Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 5:25, Romans 8:14, Isaiah 30:21

Keeping time with the Spirit is less a regimental march—left, right, left, right! ad infinitum—and more like a subtle dance, a responsive feel for what comes next. Lionel Salter offers a parallel in h...

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Finding a Private Relaxation Activity

Author

Stephen W. Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 23:1-3, Psalm 62:1, Matthew 11:28-30, Hebrews 4:9-10

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding ways to rest and relax as part of a healthy, balanced life: I once read a book in which the author sa...

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Let Him Rest

Author

Benedicta Ward

Keywords

The following story comes from the collection of sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers in Egypt, teaching that would have first been transmitted orally (around 350-450 A.D.) and later written down...

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The Sabbath Reveals Economic Disparities

Author

Kevin Blue

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The discussion of the sabbath leads to an interesting reflection. Some of our economies and cultures actually are put together in such a way that the poor either struggle to get enough work or have no...

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The Wisdom of Dormancy

Author

Wayne Muller

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 2:2-3, Exodus 20:8-11, Leviticus 25:4-5, Mark 2:27, Isaiah 40:30-31

Sabbath honors the necessary wisdom of dormancy. If certain plant species, for example, do not lie dormant for winter, they will not bear fruit in the spring. If this continues for more than a season,...

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The Lesson of Genesis

Author

John Koessler

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 2:1-3, Exodus 20:8-11, Deuteronomy 5:12-15, Psalm 46:10, Mark 2:27-28, Hebrews 4:1-11, Isaiah 30:15

The lesson of Genesis is that the first work of rest is to cease from our own effort. All that needs to be done has already been done. The work of God was finished long before we ever came on the scen...

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Parenting and the Sabbath

Author

MaryAnn McKibben Dana

Keywords

Our Sabbath project grew out of a desire to reclaim some of the unhurried wonder of those early days of parenthood—to see what would happen if, on one day out of seven, we stopped working, striving, a...

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Heavenly Sleep

Author

A. J. Swoboda

Keywords

Sleep

Relational needs are not a by – product of the fall. Likewise, the need for rest, or Sabbath, is not an aftertaste of human sinfulness, unlike our chronic inability to receive rest. In fact, as we sha...

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Fighting Sleep

Author

John Koessler

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 4:8, Psalm 127:2, Proverbs 3:24, Job 11:18-19, Deuteronomy 33:12, Proverbs 3:5

When my eldest son, Drew, was a toddler, bedtime was a battleground in our house. I think he felt cheated by the prospect of sleep. He hated the thought of going to bed while the rest of the world con...

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