Spiritual Formation: Rest

Welcome back to My Tennessee Table! Today we're talking about the Spiritual Formation practice of Rest and who doesn't need more of that nowadays? The thought of taking time to rest seems nearly impossible for a lot of reasons, I get it. But God instructs us as Christ-followers to take Sabbath rest because He knew we needed time to recharge and engage with Him. So make yourself comfortable as we talk through what it means to practice rest. 

Biblehub.com "The Importance of Spiritual Rest"

carlagasser.com "Spiritual Practice of REST" 

https://renovare.org/articles/the-spiritual-discipline-of-rest

Transcript

juli-_1_02-24-2025_102433: 0:05

Hey guys, welcome to My Tennessee Table. We're so glad to be back with y'all. We missed a week last week so I hope y'all missed us. We missed you. We did. We are just really grateful to you guys for tuning in today. We hope you're having the best day. It's sunshiny here in Nashville and beautiful day. Just super happy that we can be outside and in the sun and the warmth. So, wherever you are, I hope you're having the best day too. And whether you're on a run or in the drop off lane at school, folding laundry, or at the beach, and if you're at the beach, we do wish we were there. So speaking of the beach, Julie, super jealous, you were just at the beach. How was it? What was? I was just at the beach. It was the beach. It was beautiful as usual, right? The scene is so pretty. There's just something about. I was just something about the ocean and that blue sky that just comforts my heart. I can't explain it. You know, I spent a lot of my time in the West in Wyoming previous to that I was in Michigan, so we didn't have lots of this beautiful ocean access and for us here in Our area, we can get to the beach in like, what is it? Six hours or seven, six and a half hours with no airport and no customs and no, you just go, which is awesome. So maybe that's part of the beauty of it. You get there and you're not totally, you know, stressed out, but it was so good. I went with a bunch of girlfriends and, it was a little chilly. We had some days that were chilly. We went to the, yeah. The pool and the beach on the warm days, and we also went on the cold days. We just wore like parkas. Well, I should say I wore a parka is what happened. And I took my beach towel and used my beach towel as blankets for my legs, but it was still so fun. So it was great. We ate in. Some of the girls cooked, which they were pretty good. We made phenomenal meals and we ate out maybe once or twice. We did eat out at Mimo's. Have you eaten at Mimo's? No, it's not right there, like seaside on the beach, it's, it's somewhere. I don't know. We drove. Was it like a strip mall off of? No, we drove towards Mimo's. Where we drove west. Okay, and it was in a little town I don't know maybe seven miles from where we were staying in. Okay in our area Anyways, it's delicious and it's Italian and we've eaten there one other time. So Recommendation go to Mimos. It's in Santa Rosa somewhere. Okay. I don't know where. Julie so helpful. I actually drove But I'm not the best at directions. Anyway, so Good conversation, great friends, and a whole week, a whole week. So fun and laughing and conversation and just some wonderful girls who are just deeply thoughtful and you know, it matters who you travel with. They're also our neighbors. P. S. Yes. Yes. So I. Great. I was super jealous all week and I did comment on some of their Facebook posts that next time I'm sneaking in to the back of their car, whether I like pack myself in a suitcase and they don't even know that I'm there, I'm going to show up at the beach next year when they come down for coffee. Hi, Lily. Be like, where did you come from? Like, ha, ha, ha. Told y'all. Don't do that. Told y'all. I would love that if you came. I would love that because again, it matters who you travel with and there's just to ease around these ladies. And so, and you would totally fit that vibe. So. Yeah. Yeah. These ladies, they are so, like Julie said, they're so easy. They're so laid back. They're just easy to be around. I love people that are easy to be around, like you do you, I'm going to go do this. You go for a walk. Sure. We'll do. Yeah. And we did that. you don't have to do everything together, but we did do some stuff together, so it was really easy. So it was a great time of relaxing and rest. So it was good. What about you? Well, here in the north. Julie, you missed the snow. Oh my gosh. You went to the beach and left us up here in the snow and the cold. It was actually great. The kids were out of school so they got a couple days, well they already had a day off because it was a holiday and then I think they had two more days off. So they had like a two day school week. Wow. Yeah. Which was awesome. Great for them and honestly, I don't hate it I really don't as long I didn't have any photo shoots scheduled the days that they were out Fortunately, my oh good my days that had things scheduled were that the two days that week that they had school I was like, thank you Jesus. Oh, yeah, so that worked out really well for me So I got to enjoy the snow days with them my husband was off on one of the days and we just got to have a Laid back, snowy time. The kids were out playing a little bit. It wasn't a ton of snow, but it was really cold. So the first snow day, there was enough snow for them to go out and like sled for a few minutes. But then the next day it was mostly melted and it was freezing cold outside. So nobody wanted to do that. No. To be out in that. No. So we just kind of cozied up. We watched a few movies and it was great. But then because we had so much kid time, Eric and I had a couple date nights scheduled on the books for the weekend. One was just us and then one was with some friends. So we got to go out with friends and we got to go out with each other and just talk and you know. Went to a new place, the Henry. If you guys have been there, it was really great. We loved it. I saw that on your It's in 12th South. Instagram. It was yummy. Oh, 12th South. Okay. I've not heard of that one, but I would love to add it to the would like to go someday list. It's really, it was good. It was really good. So you had some relaxing time too. I did. I mean, unplanned. Not in the sunshine and sand and No. I know. Well, today we are actually talking about that. Not sunshine or sand or relaxation, really, but yes, but we are talking about rest and that's the next spiritual formation practice we're going to talk about today. We have talked about other spiritual formation practices, in this season and other episodes. So, if you haven't had an opportunity to catch those totally worth going back and just giving a listen to those. And again, Lili had said this last week or in our episode that we don't just do the spiritual disciplines just to add more to are already really super full to do lists just to add another thing. If they're intended for a purpose and that's that we would grow in the likeness of Christ as we spend time with him and that changes who we are, but it's also, you Really a blessing to other people too, who get to live around us, as we get transformed to be more like him. So today we're going to talk about rest, as a spiritual discipline. And this may have been one of my favorites to research mainly because I have a little trouble resting sometimes. So I don't know, is my favorite or the most convicting? Not sure. Yeah. TBD. Jury's out. Yeah. We're going to see about that one, but I can tend to be Well, I know I am because I've taken like the personality assessments disc, you know, all those ones. And I'm right down the middle, task oriented, people oriented, which is great because I love both, but you give me a to do list and I'm going to make it happen. And I generally. Absolutely. Daily make a to do list. It's either on my calendar in my phone or a sticky. I stickies on my dash when I worked so I wouldn't forget my kids and I wouldn't forget. Don't forget your kids. Work stuff. And so sometimes I add stuff to that list just for the joy of crossing them off because it feels so good. That's so type A of you. Oh, geesh. Yeah, I do. I, I, you know, I should say, I think I probably value, I think the world values, productivity, I think it be, can be a blessing because you want to get your work done, and it's rewarded a lot of times. So there's incentive. Yeah. So, but as a result, again, I'm not resting all that great. So give me some downtime and I'm thinking of, well, what's a new project I could start today. Maybe I could paint the entire house. Actually, I had that thought today. I have some people coming for dinner on Sunday and I thought, could I finish this dining room? Could I paint this? I'm like, Julie, no you can't. But, anyhow, I don't rest super great. Yeah. and that can be a problem. Cause then I just kind of push myself harder. And if I, you know, Fatigued. I just ignore that. Which isn't good. Don't can get burn out. So rest is something I need. So I have enjoyed researching for this one and just learning more about it and rest is a gift that God has given us. And learning to cultivate that rest as a spiritual discipline is really helpful. Yeah. And healthy for us spiritually. Surprise, God knew that. Oh yeah. Yeah. So we're gonna learn more about it today. Yes. So rest is. Well, what I'm defining is rest and we'll probably like talk through this a little bit, but I'm specifically talking about Sabbath. So it's a 24 hour period set aside every week, and it's a time for rest, like we're talking about and delight and worship. And you can do it with other people. You can do it alone. You can do it with just your family, but it's a, it's a special time set aside where you're not doing things. And in today's world, like you said, everything's so fast paced and hurried and productivity just all the time, all the time, all the time. If you. If you work outside of your home, you know that you are accessible 24 seven. You have email on your phone. Your phone is with you all the time. So there's just, there's no, there's no just natural time for rest unless you intentionally do it. So. We see it in the Bible in lots of places, but we see it in the beginning because God did it when in the, in the creation story, we see that God created for six days and then on the seventh day. God rested and it wasn't because God's tired. Nothing makes God tired, right? God is not just, oh, I'm so exhausted. I need a nap. That's not how God works, but it was, it was to model for us. It was to model for humanity and to emphasize the importance of stopping. Work and focus on spiritual renewal and communion with God so we see that in Genesis 2 2 through 3 in the beginning and then we see it again in Exodus and We see it again in Matthew Like I love this verse in Matthew and it says come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls You For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And so God is, is offering that to us as just a place to go to him. He, I mean, he is rest when we are with him, we should feel rested. And so it goes beyond physical relief and it's just a promise of peace for our soul because we are in relationship with him. and you had mentioned that Exodus. passage as well that we see in the creation story. We see it again in Exodus. Well, Exodus, we get the command, Exodus 20 is the 10 commandment, and it says to keep the Sabbath. So for me, as we'll talk about in a little bit, I've not been really great at this. I haven't just pulled from memory. This is a command. It's not like, Oh, hey, if you get around to it, or if you feel like it, yeah, I'm Do that. Yeah. And so it's part of the commandments that we get in Exodus 20 and Sabbath in itself, it means cease. So cease from this cease from work ceased from his work of creation and rested. And again, not because he was tired, but because it was good. And so we cease from our work so that we can focus on him and spend some time on him. Amen. Just remembering who he is and what he's done for us and the blessings and the provisions that he's offered to us. So those are some of the reasons why it's important that we observe Sabbath rest or rest times within our life is because he's commanded them. And again, we've said this before that the commands that God has given us, the instruction in his word is all wrapped up in love. It's because he loves us so much and he knows that they're good for us and that Sabbath rest is good for us. And it's so to be a blessing to us and also to glorify him. So there's some other reasons that we want to practice spiritual rest. besides just the commands, maybe not reasons, but more byproducts is that we practice rest. Before the Lord, we're really acknowledging his sovereignty of who he is. You've asked me to do this. I trust you with my life. I trust you with your timing and your process of my life. I think for me that striving is because I think I got a lot to do and I have a timetable and there's some things I want to get done and I think stopping and pausing that is really a surrender or relinquishing. Of my timetable of when I think I need things done and just trusting his timing. So really an active surrender before him and also just, I mean, what a gift to spend some time in prayer and reflection and reading his word. That's going to foster maturity in us, spiritual maturity in us. Where we had said on 1 other episode, spending time with God is not going to be a detriment to you ever. It's always gonna be a benefit. So it will be. I often think sometimes we forget. Well, me, I should say, forget that I need to be intentional with planning that rest or Sabbath rest. Sometimes it can not be a choice, but maybe, kind of forced upon you. Sounds heavy, but because we want ourselves out, we haven't taken time for, our emotional health or mental or physical health. And we burn out. I know for me, I had started a new job. Oh, golly. This was years ago and I really enjoyed it. And it was a new sector of employment for me. So I really wanted to do great. I wanted to. Show up early. I wanted to do my job completely. I was just really enjoying it and one morning I am typically out of bed before Lance is out of bed My husband and I was still in the bed and he got up and was getting ready He got in the bathroom came out and he said are you are you going to work today? It's I don't think I'm going to work today. And he's like, well, what's the matter, babe? You're not feeling good. I go, I really just can't pinpoint. He says, do you have a headache? No, it's tummy upset. No, I just, I had just, I was absolutely exhausted. This is back in, when the kids are playing football and volleyball and travel city sports, I was doing church and. Women's ministry and working and I just think my body was like, and now we're done and I needed that day of rest. So sometimes if we don't schedule it, our bodies will, because we own, we have limits and capacities. We don't want to. We don't want to think we do what we do. So have you ever found yourself forced to kind of take a rest from life? Maybe just from pushing too hard? Yeah, I would say now that you kind of explained your day of rest, I'm like, yeah, that's probably happened to me before. I don't know that I've let myself though. Cause it's like, I mean, I'm also coming off of my youngest kid just started kindergarten. So I am just now at a point where if I were to just be like, I need to take a day of rest actually could, where before that just wasn't possible, there was a kid home with me and that doesn't allow for that really. But I will say when you first talked about me, talked about that question with me, I was like, well, I don't know if I've ever had a. Forced rest, but I definitely have had a chosen season of rest where, when, after my third child was born and I was still working in ministry part time yet full time and doing lots of other things, shuffling kids all over the place and, you know, just being a mom and also running a business, it was a lot. And I just felt the call that it was time to step away because I just, I was, I was anxious. I mean, it led me to a place where I was like on medication for anxiety. I was meeting with a counselor to try to like work through it. And I think in that process of really trying to get myself healthy, I think the Lord called me to a place to step away from that position and that role because I needed time to rest. And I do feel like I have had time to really rest. And hopefully, I mean, who knows what the Lord has for me in the future, but hopefully come back at some point, just in a better place, because it just, you know, when you've been pushing yourself too hard for too long, you just really can get yourself to a bad place and you're not effective and you're not, you have a bad attitude. I mean, there's just a lot that comes from that. So when we keep going back to God, God commands us to rest. God shows us how to rest because he did it. God. He invites us into rest. It's because like you said, he loves us and he knows that we need that. So in the past, when I've seen myself get to that point of exhaustion and God's telling me to step away from something, I'm like, why, what takes me so long to be like, yeah, If God was like, come here, come take a nap. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I got to keep doing, doing, doing, doing, doing. And he's like, no, actually you can just take a nap. That doing will still happen even if you're not there. And that's another hard pill to swallow. Sometimes it's just to go, God actually doesn't need me. I can't actually take a break. I can't actually take a rest because the world will still go around if you're not. Like you said, if you're not at work that day, I'm sure carry on, but yeah, everybody did great. Everybody was just fine without you that day. Right. And just like me stepping away from my position in ministry, it has carried on and it is just fine without me, you know? So I mean, sometimes I like to think, Oh no, maybe it's not the same, but it's like, no, it is like, yeah, God, God does it. Yeah. He's the one who takes care of it and orchestrates it all. So it's just, it's that beautiful invitation for us to just really listen to our father and his. Heart for us and say yes, when he says it's time to rest and you say yes So there's a quote you have here and I want to read it to us because it's really good But it says in a world characterized by constant activity and distraction Spiritual rest offers a counter cultural practice that prioritizes the soul's well being So we were both saying when we want particularly with work If you have a job outside of the home or even inside of the home, you Push yourself to the point of exhaustion because that's what the world is trying to tell us to do and God is telling us the opposite yeah, it's really the Productivity be accomplished almost like it's a badge. If you're exhausted by the end of the day, like, Oh boy, I did it today. Yeah. I am, I know we don't talk about this a lot, but I'm an Enneagram three. And they always say that Enneagram three, like the world exists for us, especially in the United States of America. Like we are the people that are just like thrown to the top because it's like, Oh, you're the person that is efficient. You can get more done. You work, work, work, work, work, work tends to be the top of our priority list. And. And not a healthy way, honestly. And so yeah, sometimes I think the world really is like, yeah, here, let's lift up these people that are so productive because that's what we want the rest of the world to look like and aspire to be like, or the rest of us aren't getting that much done until the rest of you get on up there. We need those threes. I don't know. Get it going. No, because then I look at people that do rest well and do know how to say no and do prioritize. Good things the things that we should prioritize and I think I want to be more like that I don't I don't like the fact that I feel like I have to do do do BBB all the time I think I think I shared this story one time. I was in my master's program I was working and the kids were all home. We might have had one in college at that time. I can't remember Anyways, and there were interruptions at work and I thought, okay, I can, I can do it. I'm just, I'm just going to juggle it. But I would be looking at my computer while someone was talking to me. And this was personal, this wasn't just like work related. They had something happen in their life that they needed someone to talk to about. And I just really clearly one day in my office heard the Lord say, if you will be fully present in this moment, With whomever I put before you, I promise I will give you the time back. And he never failed on that promise. And so I could, it took my heart a minute. I mean, I had to train myself to let that kind of that anxiousness kind of smash down, put my computer aside and be fully present with whomever was before, whether it was a student, whether it was a colleague, a friend, most of them were friends, not just colleagues. And the Lord would offer that time back to me. And I, it's what you're saying. I think people that do this well actually can be very productive and maybe even more, joy filled and energized and restored in their work because they have spent time in rest. But our brains don't get that. When you had said, our father says, just come, just rest, take a nap. Think of our kids. We always wanted them to nap and they fought it. Yeah, almost every time. Let's say I fell asleep in the car seat. So it's just something about us that we're. We're driven to that do, do, do by nature, maybe, and then also just, you know, by the world. So, yeah. So, how do we practice rest then? We've talked about how much we need it. I think we're all convinced of that for sure as we examine our lives, but we mentioned Sabbath rest. That can happen on a Sunday. You could take your Sabbath rest on Sunday. You can take your Sabbath rest on another day of the week too. So I did. I mean, I will probably talk about this in a minute, but I did practice Sabbath for a long time. And it was when I was working at a church. And so I did practice Sabbath on a Friday because it would start at Friday afternoon until Saturday afternoon because Sunday I was working so it's like, this doesn't make sense. Sunday's not my Sabbath. I'm running around like a crazy person on Sunday. Right. And Sabbath is typically. Um, send down on Friday to send down on Saturday. Well that's when I did it. Yeah. There we go. There you go. I was doing it right. Yeah, you were doing it right. So like you did you took in a different day that can happen on a different day and you can fill that day with personal devotion time. we're ceasing from work is what we're doing. So some personal devotion time, maybe worship. Time, time in solitude, time with family. You know, you can do this in community. I have, known a person who does theirs on Sunday. They go to church. They take some time in the afternoon. They're napping. They're reading a book. There's no phone, no social, no Netflix, nothing. And then evening time, I don't know that it was every Sunday, but evening time they would invite their friends into their rest, to encourage their friends to rest. So that would be fire pit. Bonfire spent some time talking about just goodness of God in your life or over dinner with some candles not anything I'm not in a hurry to, you know, spend an all day cooking that kind of thing. So I thought that was beautiful because I love having, I love people. I like having gatherings and time together over food. So some other ways that rest could happen too is just to give yourself a time out, take a blanket. Go on the lawn. Your neighbors will think you're, I don't even know what's happening, but close your eyes, lay back, just take 10 minutes or on your couch and just, take some time alone with the Lord. You had mentioned being out in nature and I just did too. I think taking a walk and just death that happens for me that ha it happens in those moments for me when I'm. In the world, the beautiful world he's created, take some rest. Another suggestion was to create something without pressure. you don't have to do it for work. It's not a creation for work. It's something you do like you paint. So painting or I garden gardening or baking, I love to bake. I don't eat that as much anymore, but I love to bake. So some things that is just a thing that is creative for you and enjoyable for how God made you. So put a timer on your phone and just don't answer calls or emails or. Get on your phone, put it away, put it away like you're eight to eight or eight thirty to eight thirty. How you do it. Yeah. Take a bath. Again, these are suggestions. a mama of young kids, you might have to lock yourself in there. There's other things, other ways to do that, but, spend some time, just find a rhythm and when and how often you practice it. It can be done once a week, which, Sabbath should be observed once a week or more frequently. And if it's, so valuable to our walk, then I'm wondering why we have a hard time doing it. Yeah. I mean, there's there. Well, I mean, I can tell you, we could talk about this for a long time. There's a lot of reasons why we don't practice rest and things that get in the way of that. And definitely, I think just our culture, our world, like we keep saying, it just, Pushes like work more productivity. These things are the most important thing So it tells you that you can't have a rest because you need to work work work. You're always available 24 7 I can reach you on your email or on your phone I can call you or text you anytime I want to and I would like a response back Because I know you got it. Yeah, so I mean that's tricky The other thing is we're just we're distracted There's just things that are distracting us from doing it. There's work and rest and friends and our social calendars and even our, even church stuff like can get in the way of us really putting in that practice and having that rhythm of Sabbath on a weekly basis. And, you know, I know for me, it's like soccer, like we're playing soccer all weekend, so it's really hard to find 24 hours to. practice Sabbath as a family, it's really difficult, but I'm going to talk about more of that in a little while. But also, like I said, no time. It's just hard. It's just really hard to find that kind of time in your week to be able to practice something like rest. But like Julie said, if you can figure out It should, Sabbath should be enjoyable. Sabbath should be one of those spiritual formation practices that brings you joy because you can do it with your family. You can do it with community. You're doing things that you love to do. Like she said, you're, you're doing something creative. If you're a Cree, if you're a creative person like me, I would paint. Julie's going to garden and she's going to cook. So those things, it. I want to say that, yes, it can be hard to find time, but if you realize that Sabbath and rest is enjoyable and it can be done with just so much joy, then I think you might realize it's easier to fit it into your weekly rhythm than you realize. Because if you're like, okay, yeah, on Sabbath, we have just a delicious, yummy meal. we make sure we go out to the butcher shop and we love steaks at our house. So. So if you buy filets, twice baked potato, whatever you love, invite your best friends over and have Sabbaths together, then I think we're going to start to realize that maybe it's not as hard as we realize because God really, like we keep saying, He has shown us that this is important to us. Even in the, the 24 hour day cycle, there's light and there's dark. And so, we tend to Nowadays, there's all this extra light, there's electricity now, so you can keep working after it's dark. Well, there used to not be that. There used to not be electricity. So it used to be that when the sun set, it was time for rest. Well, that's not the case anymore. But I think we can, I think we can really find ways to try to do this better and to love it and for it to be something that we can love to do and love to want to put into our lives. Weekly rhythm. Yes, and I'm I was trying to find the scripture. the lord rested on that day Yeah, and took Sabbath and looked at what he creations created and said it was good. Yeah, I think that was enjoyable I think that was an enjoyable Delight for him. And so when you said sabbath is created so that we could delight in him It is I think you're right. I think if we find You Intentionally, because we need to do that intentionally find some ways to spend Sabbath that are, enriching and enjoyable. We will crave it more. we just don't take enough time out to do it. That was one, one of my reasons why it's hard for me to do it is, sometimes I just, I don't crave it or I think I don't need it or, or don't want it. God knows what's best for me more than I do. And all the work is still going to be there, people. I mean, whatever you leave to be done later is still going to be there when you pick it back up. Totally. So practicing rest is just a, it's an act of trust and obedience. It's just saying, I'm confident in you, Lord, that you're going to provide for us. You're going to provide for our loved ones. Work's still going to be there. And we may find out after our time out of rest that, Maybe we even enjoy work more or we are more productive because we've spent some time in rest. So in the past, how have you practiced rest? So, yeah, like I said, we used to practice rest. I was, this was before COVID hit. So pre 2020, probably 2019 or so, I was really overwhelmed and anxious. We had had our third kid, like I said, and it was just, everything felt good. Just too much and I had not resigned from my job at church yet, but I was working through like ways to be like how like this is all just too much. And how can I find ways just personally to make sure that I am resting and I am just not exhausted all the time. And so we begin to put into the practice of, of Sabbath in our weekly rhythm. And we would, like I said, start on Friday afternoon. A lot of times I would clean the house on Friday earlier in the afternoon. I would clean, clean, clean, get the house totally clean. Cause I rest better when I'm not surrounded by clutter. If not, I'll just be like. I need, I need to vacuum this room. I need to mop this room. So I would clean the house. And then after it was clean, I would light a candle and that would begin kind of our Sabbath and it would usually last through Friday night and through Saturday morning. I would have loved for it to last 24 hours, but it just didn't. Just the phase of life that we were in and are in still, it was really hard to make it last 24 hours, but I don't think that it has to last. 24 hours. Like, I think, I think if we start to put rules on it, it starts to feel like, well, this feels, feels really, yes. And you don't like, we don't want that. God doesn't want that. So whatever you did it and you can build, like you can build it to the 24 hours. So ours kind of lasted like maybe 15, 18 hours, but we would on Friday night, we would cook something really yummy. A lot of times I would cook dessert. Like we don't, Really have dessert a lot in our house during the week. And so we'd have dessert. We would have family game night We would put away our phones. We don't do this anymore And I'm really like we should do this because now I have a third person in my house that has a phone My daughter who's 14. We just gave her a phone right after she turned 14 And so there's three people in my house that are now distracted by phones So as we're talking through this, I'm like, oh man, we need Sabbath back in our lives. So we would put away our phones. We'd have family game night. I mean, sometimes we would watch a movie. Sometimes we'd have friends over. The next morning, we'd get up. We'd make family breakfast together. It was always something yummy. Eric, my husband's a really good cook. He makes the best omelets on the planet. A lot of times he would make omelets. It was just a time to be We would be together, to be with the Lord, we would read our Bibles, obviously, spend time with God, it was just, like I said, it was enjoyable, and honestly, and I know, I think we've said this in like, some of the stuff that, research that we did, but I am speaking from like, personal, like, experience, that, I was a better mom, worker, employee, whatever I was doing, I was better at it because I had that 24 hours every week or 12, 18, whatever it was, but that time set aside every week to rest. And so I knew like, as I went through Monday, Tuesday was okay, I'm really tired. I'm getting tired, but I knew the rest was coming. And then come Sunday, the day after our day of rest, I felt so renewed, refreshed, just better. I was just better. better because of it. And so here's the thing. Here's the thing that I think is hard because I know I'm dealing with this. And I know everybody listening is probably going to be like, that sounds so great. Right? It sounds so wonderful. How, how am I going to do this? Cause I'm even thinking about my week this week. I'm like, okay, yeah, let's bring back Sabbath. It's time to bring back Sabbath into the grease hammer household. How am I going to do this? Laney is gone to a birthday party on Friday night. Cade has soccer on Saturday morning. First thing, you know, you, you just start to realize like, there's just all these things happening. And I think, I do think the people that are really putting this into practice and making it a weekly rhythm, I do think that they're not participating in sports. I do think they're kind of like. This is so important to us and to our family that we're we say no to things like that and that's hard So you have to you have to wrestle through that. I don't know. I don't have the answers. Absolutely not I'm just saying I know what I'm experiencing and I know a lot of you listening are probably experiencing the same thing So I just want to tell you I don't know. I don't know the answers I I do know that you have to say no, and I don't I don't know how you do that, right? You Right, and then no and put it on the calendar almost like you build you build your calendar around it. Yeah But thank you for acknowledging that because it's true. We don't have all the answers and life is crammed full I mean, I don't even have kids at home and this week is a doozy There's a lot going on just prep wise and writing why there's just a lot going on this week But I think I can find some hours, maybe not 24, like you were saying, I can find some hours. We have not intentionally practiced Sabbath rest or even regular rest for years. I mean, I think part of it is the season of life we're in. When our kids were small, we did. It was our Sunday. Typically was, we all went to church and then we all had family. Lunch together. That was either out or at my mom's house or my aunt's house. So it was cousins and my aunt and uncle and my mom and our kids. And, and then we went home and everybody took a nap and then we didn't go anywhere. We got settled in. We were getting. Some last minute rest before the busy week started. And it was really a rhythm for us. It just happened so naturally. Again, our kids are in elementary, younger, probably elementary. So we didn't have, city basketball yet, or, summer league baseball, which you travel on Sundays, you're in the car. So that was a little more, tricky as they got older. And now, because we have so much free time, that's so interesting in a weird way. We, we have a harder time, disciplining ourself with our time. So weird. I had a friend, a teacher friend, and she said, during the school year, I can crank it out. I get so much done. Not even just at work, but at home with their kids. In the summertime, she's like, I have all these lofty goals because I'm doing, I don't get any of them done because I just have more time. So I don't know if it's a weird, Oh, I got time to do that. We're just not, we're just not as structured and on our time, but I have been challenged in our study of this to make that happen. And no shame here. No, no, just an encouragement to give it a try. give the Sabbath rest to try. Like Lily said, I think we will fall in love with that time with our Lord and of refreshment. So, yeah. And so, So just kind of as we close out, I mean, guys, it's hard, it's really hard to figure out when to fit this into your week, especially if you're listening today and you're like, how am I supposed to fit this in in the next seven days? Right. Maybe, maybe don't worry about that. Maybe look ahead and maybe just, start with one once a month, setting aside an evening. what if you just said, okay, this Friday evening, we have nothing going on. So let's make that our Sabbath night. And when the kids get home from school on Friday, you practice Sabbath until Saturday morning when you got to get up and go to the soccer, basketball, baseball, football, swimming, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. So I would say, Just find a way, find a way to get it in there somewhere and see how it is working for you and then move on from there, like see, maybe next month you can get it in twice, then maybe the next month you can get in three times, like just, just see if you can, Somehow work it into your weekly, monthly rhythm because obviously God knows that we're better for it and it's good for us. And so we want to follow him. We want to follow his example, do what he did, listen to his commands. So that's what, that's what we want. That's what our hearts want, you know, deep down inside of us. It's just hard. It's really, really hard. So I'm going to say, start there and I'm going to start there too. Me too. Me too. And we want what he wants for us. Cause we know it's good. So we're going to give it a try. Y'all, thank you for meeting us at the table today. You are a highlight in our week and we are so grateful for you. And just for the opportunity to talk about Jesus, as we walk through this beautiful and, you know, sometimes complicated life, if you enjoyed today and you learned something new, would you consider leaving a review and, or sharing the podcast with a friend or even with your small group, we'd be so thankful to have more people listening and using whatever is helpful from the podcast. So remember friends. You You have a seat at our table every time and anytime. Have the best week and we'll see you next week at my Tennessee table.