Thought Exercise on Work And Rest

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Life with the Dull Bits

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Alfred Hitchcock said movies are “life with the dull bits cut out.” Car chases and first kisses, interesting plot lines and good conversations. We don’t want to watch our lead character going on a wal...

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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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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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A Saxophonist's Spiritual Revelation

Author

Ryan Bundrick

Scripture

Luke 2:1-35, 2 Timothy 4:6-7, Colossians 3:23-24, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Ephesians 2:10

John Coltrane stands out as one of the giants of 20th-century jazz. His legacy is a generation of hearts touched and the light of God shining through his songs. Yet, for years, his work was haunted by...

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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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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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Uneasy Lies the Head

Author

Greg Gilbert

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

Keywords

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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Dostoevysky and the Origins of Burnout

Author

Arthur C. Brooks

Keywords

In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov , Alyosha, the novel’s central protagonist, asks his father for permission to join a monastery, where he seeks to purify his soul and sanctify his wo...

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The Two Runners

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

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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Struggling to Rest

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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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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What to Do With all Our Free Time

Author

Richard Swenson

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For much of the twentieth century, futurists and other labor experts were predicting ever shorter workweeks. In the mid-1920s, for example, Julian Huxley said that the two-day workweek was “inevitable...

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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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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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Three Images for Retreat

Author

Ruth Haley Barton

Keywords

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 First Word Spoken to Adam & Eve

Author

A. J. Swoboda

Keywords

Imagine what Adam and Eve learned about God’s generosity from their first impression of him on their first day. Their first knowledge of God and the world God had made was that rest was not an afterth...

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They Keep Going and Going…

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 20:8-10, Isaiah 40:29-31, 1 Kings 19:4-8, Matthew 11:28-30, Mark 6:31, Psalm 23:1-3

In 1989, the advertising world welcomed a new icon into the world. It was pink, it was furry, it wore sunglasses, and sported a drum-set. Can you picture him? It’s the Energizer bunny. Television scre...

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What We Love to Do & How We Love to Be

Author

Stephen W. Smith

Keywords

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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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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Meriting our Salvation

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 6:23, Philippians 3:9, Titus 3:5, Galatians 2:16, Isaiah 64:6, Romans 6:23, Ephesians 2:8-9

At the core of every project of self-salvation is the staunch unwillingness to believe that God’s love and forgiveness can be unmerited. Those who would try and save themselves prefer work to rest, ef...

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Every Self-Salvation Project

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 4:3-7 , Exodus 16:14-20, Psalm 103:10-12 , Ephesians 2:8-9 , Romans 6:23

At the core of every project of self-salvation is the staunch unwillingness to believe that God’s love and forgiveness can be unmerited. Those who would try and save themselves prefer work to rest, ef...

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“A Picture Paints a Thousand Words”

Author

Shelly Miller

Keywords

Reflection

In photography, a still image communicates meaning. Sometimes referred to as freeze frame, these images provide details that lead to greater insight. Use of space, body language, facial expression, an...

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Be More Productive by Taking Breaks

Author

Harvard Business Review

Keywords

A New York Times story reports on the positive impact school recess has on academic performance. Here’s how it begins: “The best way to improve children’s performance in the classroom may be to take t...

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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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A 7 or 10 Day Work-Week?

Author

A. J. Swoboda

Keywords

This seven-day week is not something that can, or should, be tinkered with, although some have tried to. In 1793, France, in an effort to increase human productivity, de-Christianized the calendar by ...

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Comparing the Genesis Creation Account with their Neighbors

Author

A. J. Swoboda

Keywords

Scripture

John 1:3, Psalm 104:24, Genesis 2:2-3, Genesis 1:27, Genesis 1:31

The Jews were not the only religious people in the ancient world. There were others, such as the Akkadians, Egyptians, and Phoenicians, and they had their own creation stories. When one compares the ...

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Can a Prayer be Bad?

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 8:26-27, Matthew 6:9-13, Hebrews 4:16, Isaiah 57:15, Psalm 34:18, 2 Corinthians 12:9

The Lord’s Prayer, like all prayer, is part work and part rest, Perhaps the only work we do is getting ourselves there. Once we’ve gotten ourselves there—to prayer—whatever mains of productivity is Go...

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The Science of Happiness

Author

Brian Fikkert and Kelly M. Kapic

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What makes people happy? People have sought the answer to this question for thousands of years, but in the past two decades there has been an explosion of scientific research on this topic. In his pre...

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Disciplining Daily Deeds

Author

Kyle David Bennett

Keywords

Scripture

James 3:13, Hebrews 12:11, Proverbs 4:23, Philippians 4:8-9, Colossians 3:17, Romans 12:1-2, 1 Timothy 4:7-8

We can learn a thing or two about discipleship and the discipline required of a disciple from our fourth-century monastic brothers and sisters. Like them, we do basic, ordinary activities every day. W...

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Investing in their Bodies

Author

Chad Veach

Keywords

LeBron James will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the greatest players in basketball history. His stats are consistently jaw-dropping, despite competing in a sport that is usually dominated by you...

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