Introspection: Balancing Act

I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.

Balancing Act

Scripture:

Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to GOD, your God. Don't do any work... For in six days GOD made Heaven, Earth, and sea, and everything in them; He rested on the seventh day. Therefore GOD blessed the Sabbath day; He set it apart as a holy day.

Exodus 20:8-11 (The Message)

Savior, please
Take my hand
I work so hard
I live so fast
This life begins
And then it ends
And I do the best that I can
But I don't know how long I'll last

From "Savior, Please" by Josh Wilson

If you have been reading my blog this year, you know that I have admitted to being a perfectionist. Because of this, I tend to get really frustrated when I don't live up to the standard I place on myself. Unfortunately, I think that all of the stress in my life, a vast majority of it self-induced, is starting to catch up with me. Lately I have been becoming very angry with things that should be, at most, mild annoyances. I even found myself momentarily wishing that I would fail at everything or suffer a breakdown just so I could cast aside all the pressure.

I have started to wonder if I have too much going on in my life. While I would love to lose some some of my stress, I know that there are many people who take on a lot more than I do and handle it much better than I do. In comparison, I have it pretty easy. So why am I getting so frustrated? Why do I sometimes feel as though I am on the verge of a burn-out?

In the book Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell tells the story of the founding of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In the first few months, attendance boomed and the church rapidly expanded. For the first two years, Rob tried to be the perfect pastor, seeking to meet everyone's expectations of him. He tried to meet all the wants and needs of his thousands of parishioners while setting a good example for them. He tried to be, as he termed it, "superpastor." Two years after Mars Hill was started, Rob found himself burned out. He realized that he couldn't keep going at the rate he had been going. He also realized that, because he was trying to be the perfect pastor, he was not taking a day of rest every week.¹

God commands each of us to set aside one day every week to rest. In fact, the command to take this day of rest, called the Sabbath day, is the fourth of the Ten Commandments. Rob Bell, in his pursuit to be "superpastor," was failing to "Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." I have to admit, I am not very good at keeping this commandment either. I have always been one to procrastinate. For example, on the weeks I am scheduled to teach Sunday school, I always end up spending Saturday preparing my lesson. As a result, on the following Monday, I begin my work week feeling as though I didn't have much of a weekend.

Jesus said that the greatest commandment is, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." He said that the second is, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."² To summarize, love God and love others. Most people don't realize this, but Jesus hid a third commandment within the second: love yourself. Think about it: you cannot "love your neighbor as yourself" if you do not love yourself.³

If you consider any one of the commands God gives us, you can always boil it down to one of the three commandments Jesus listed: love God, love others, or love yourself. Consider the Ten Commandments.⁴ The first three deal with our relationship with God. The last six deal with our relationships with other people. Most people consider the fourth commandment, the command to observe the Sabbath day, to concern our relationship with God; however, I believe that the fourth commandment mainly concerns our relationship with ourselves.

God commands us set aside the Sabbath day to rest because He knows that we, as humans, need time to recover from our labors. When God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments, they had just escaped slavery in Egypt. They had been treated, not as humans, but as machines. The fourth commandment, like the rest of the commandments, was designed to restore the Israelites' humanity and to put them back into the right relationships with God and with each other.⁵

The three relationships in our lives - our relationship with God, our relationship with others, and our relationship with ourselves - are all interconnected. Our perceptions of ourselves affect our perceptions of our Creator.⁶ Furthermore our love for God is shown in our love for others. Christ reminds us that when we serve others, particularly those in need, we are actually serving Him.⁷ Lastly, we are better able to serve our fellow human beings if we are living healthy, balanced lives. To live healthy, balanced lives, we need a sabbath rest.

Sometimes people lose sight of the purpose of the Sabbath day. In Jesus time, there were people who were very legalistic about their observance of the sabbath. Some would count stars to determine when the Sabbath day started and ended. Some would keep track of how far they traveled that day. There was even one group of people who refused to use the bathroom on the sabbath. Even among some modern-day Christians, the observance of the sabbath has devolved into lists of things you can and cannot do on Sunday.

Christ reminds us, "The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath."⁸ The purpose of observing the Sabbath day is to take a day to recover from the past week. Sleep in. Go for a walk. Spend time enjoying the company of friends and family. If it is sunny, go outside to enjoy the sunshine. If it is rainy, sit and enjoy the sound of raindrops. Stop and smell the roses. Relax. Recuperate.

If you say that you are unable to take a sabbath rest, you may have one of two problems. First, it is possible that you simply have too much going on in your life. Some people spend their lives constantly in a hurry to go somewhere, to get some activity over with, so that they can hurry off to the next thing. As humans, we have limits. It may be that you need to let go of some things to achieve balance in your life.

On the other hand, it may not be that you are taking on too much in your life but that you are instead failing to properly manage your time. The fourth commandment reminds us that we are to work for six days and to rest for one day, just as God does in the creation story.⁹ We are to work diligently six days out of the week so that we can afford a day of rest at the end of the week.

I know that I am guilty of the latter of the two problems. I have decided to try to better budget my time so that I can take a proper sabbath rest. On Sunday, I am constantly on the run, even on the weeks I am not teaching Sunday School, so I have decided to take Saturday, the original Sabbath, as my day of rest. I will work harder during the week to make sure that my Sunday School lesson is prepared by Friday. I may also refrain from blogging on Saturday. By taking a sabbath rest each week, I am hoping to lose some of my stress and to improve my mood.


Notes:
1 - Rob Bell. Velvet Elvis. 2005, Zondervan. p. 96-120
2 - Matthew 22:36-40 (NRSV)
3 - David A. Seamands. Healing for Damaged Emotions. 1981, David C. Cook. p. 70
4 - Exodus 20:1-17
5 - Rob Bell and Don Golden. Jesus Wants to Save Christians. 2008, Zondervan. p 33-34
6 - Matthew 25:40
7 - Seamands, p. 64
8 - Luke 2:27 (NRSV)
9 - Genesis 1


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