Rest, Rhythm, & Refill: Lessons from Sabbatical

Not just let me tell you about everything I did for summer sabbatical, but something that would be inherently helpful for you.

And the reality is a sabbatical is a pretty unusual gift.

Many people will never have the opportunity to step away from their normal responsibilities for an extended period of time, and I recognize what a privilege that was for me.

Because most of you are not going to get a three-month sabbatical, you have jobs, you have children, you have schedules, You have school, you have businesses to run, some of you are caring for aging parents, you have financial responsibilities, you have ministry commitments, and so on.

Some of you might be here even hearing me speak and think, sabbatical? That sounds wonderful.

Let me know when somebody offers me one of those, and I can't wait for that day.

So the point this morning is not that everybody needs three months off.

It's not the goal because that would be pretty self-defeating from the very beginning.

The greatest gift the sabbatical gave me was not just time off.

It was something much greater than that.

It gave me enough time to stop and see my life from 30,000 feet and to really get perspective about life.

I realize that while most of us will never receive a sabbatical, none of us can afford to live an unexamined life.

An unexamined life.

And we need opportunities to step outside of the pace of ordinary life long enough to ask whether the life we are living actually matches the life we say that matters most.

And so because one of the dangers of life is not necessarily that we suddenly decide to fill our lives with terrible things, I don't think any of us woke up this week in any moment and said, well, I'm going to start filling my life today with the most terrible things I can imagine, right? Instead of good things accumulate until there is no room left for the best things.

Work is good.

Ministry is good, children's activities and events are good, serving people is good, projects can be good, friendships are good, opportunities of all kinds are good.

But you can eventually fill your life with so many good things that you no longer have capacity to faithfully carry the most important things God has entrusted to you.

So during the summer, I found myself asking pretty big questions of myself, my life, my schedule.

Things like what is driving my life? What has gotten out of rhythm? What am I neglecting? Where am I giving my best energy? What am I doing that someone else should probably be doing? What does faithfulness need to look like in the next season of my life? And perhaps the most sobering question, if I continue living exactly the way that I am living right now, where will this take me 10 years from now? Where will I be? Those aren't just sabbatical questions.

Those are Christian life questions that I would encourage all of us to be asking these types of questions if you have not, even recently in your life, if you're not in a habit of asking these kinds of questions.

Psalm 90, as we read, verse 12 says, so teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Notice that Moses doesn't simply pray, Lord, give me more days.

His concern is, Lord, teach me how to understand and steward the days that I have.

And that really is what I want us to think about together this morning.