At Emerging Scholars Network, we love to crowdsource ideas for following Christ faithfully and serving others well in the academic life. In the 2018/2019 academic year, we’ve been sharing brief insights on how to grow spiritually in the academic life. Read the series to date here. For more of Johnny Lin’s writing for ESN, click here. [Read more…] about Cultivating Humility (Growing Spiritually in the Academic Life Series)
sabbath-keeping
Do I Really Need a Sabbath? (Scholar’s Compass)
Thank-you to Amy Davis Abdallah for joining the Emerging Scholars Network’s blogging team by sharing a pair of 2018 Lenten devotionals, looking forward to next week’s Palm Sunday’s Short-Lived Praise. Follow this link to explore ESN’s Lenten devotionals. To God be the glory! ~ Tom Grosh IV, Assoc. Dir., ESN
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Scholar’s Compass: Remembering Sabbath
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Exodus 20:8Â (NIV)
The spiritual rest which God especially intends in this commandment is that we not only cease from our labor and trade but much more—that we let God alone work in us and that in all our powers we do nothing of our own. –Martin Luther
Reflection
In Marva J. Dawn’s Keeping the Sabbath Wholly, she tells the story of a summer of graduate school in which she had to learn three new languages for her Ph.D. at the same time, and in one shortened summer session. She believed in keeping a Sabbath for rest and rejuvenation, but would she be able to keep it given the hectic demands of this season of her life? She decided she would keep Sabbath, even though she worked mostly 17 hour days on the other days. And during this demanding schedule, it rejuvenated her even more when she took a 24 hour break for time to commune with God and friends.
We live in an age in which production is cherished above nearly everything else in the workplace. How can we be counter-cultural in this day and age in which our work follows us with our smart-phones everywhere we go? One way is to keep a 24 hour Sabbath, which means not only ceasing to work, but ceasing to do any work (yard work, shopping, all kinds of work we don’t do the rest of the week), so we can truly rest and connect with God. Keeping a Sabbath means extended time with God, extended time with family or friends, extended time in a hobby that gives us life and rejuvenates us. It is a tangible way to demonstrate our faith in the Lord that he is in control of our work life and not us, and the he is gracing us with our production in our work and lives, not ourselves. After all, at any moment our ability to work could be taken away from us by loss of job, failing an exam, even injury. It is truly God who provides for us.
What practical steps can we take to keep a Sabbath?
- First, pick a day of the week or weekend in which you can keep a Sabbath.
- Turn off computers and cell phones during that time.
- Or, if you cannot turn off your phone, you can create a “Sabbath screen†on your smartphone that only has non-working apps on it. For example, a page that does not include your email app or “To do’s†app. Only access this screen on your phone during your Sabbath.
- Refuse to work during that time. If you work from home, refuse to go into your room where your office is, or where your desk is during your Sabbath.
- Don’t go do other non-office work during your Sabbath either (like yard-work), unless is it personally rejuvenating for you.
- Plan times with family and friends that are truly rejuvenating and not frenzied with preparation. For example, if friends are coming for a meal on your Sabbath, pick up some food that’s already prepared, or prepare the meal the day before.
- Spend extra time, unhurried time, with God. With no distractions, it will be easier to hear his voice, and easier to spend extra time in thanksgiving, thanking God for all he provides and does for you.
Questions
- What aspects of keeping the Sabbath as discussed here are new to you?
- How might being more intentional with your Sabbath bring you closer to God and rejuvenate you for the rest of your week?
Prayer
Lord, You have promised rest to those who come to You. Let us keep Your Sabbath today. Let it serve as a foundation of rest as we enter the week, and let it point us toward the Sabbath rest You have prepared for Your people. Give us refreshment and joy in this day and in the week to come. Amen.
Further Reading
Marva J. Dawn, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing Feasting. Eerdman’s Publishing: 1989.
Martin Luther, “Treatise on Good Works,†in The Christian in Society I, trans. W. A. Lambert, rev. James Atkinson, vol. 44 of Luther’s Works, gen. ed. Helmut T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), p. 72. Qtd. in Dawn, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly, p. 56.
Image courtesy of Simon Howden at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
What I Wish I’d Known: Balancing Life and Graduate School
Before joining ESN staff as a writer/editor in 2014, Hannah Eagleson wrote her series What I Wish I’d Known About Graduate School just after finishing her PhD in 2011.Â
As promised in my last post, here I’m talking about some things I wish I’d known (or just done!) early on to balance my life and my graduate work.
1. Make worship central
Graduate school can feel exhausting and terrifying. The pressure of continuing to produce and trying to impress professors and colleagues can make school seem like the defining aspect of one’s existence. I desperately needed to engage in corporate and individual worship as a reminder that my life and work are defined by God’s Kingdom. In the wake of burnout, it helped so much to recognize that any good thing that happened in my academic career was a result of God’s grace. That’s not to minimize the importance of hard work, but to say that it needs to take place in the context of seeking God’s Kingdom and recognizing who He is. [Read more…] about What I Wish I’d Known: Balancing Life and Graduate School
What does it mean to observe the Sabbath?
Hope I didn’t catch you (and me) at an awkward time, but are you already thirsting for encouragement in Sabbath-keeping this fall term? As I reflected upon the topic and prayed for the graduate students and faculty with whom I minister, I returned to Calvin College’s helpful Sabbath-keeping resource page for faculty. Below’s just a taste:
In an academic setting like Calvin where Monday signifies not only the beginning of a new week but the onslaught of classes to teach, tests to take (or give) and general all-around busyness, is it really realistic to rest from your work on Sunday? Is it even biblically mandated for the New Testament church?
In his book, Catch Your Breath: God’s Invitation to Sabbath Rest, Don Postema points out that that “the hectic pace of contemporary life makes the idea and practice of sabbath rest enormously attractive.” Yet this same hectic pace also, on the other hand, makes it incredibly difficult to slow down, let alone cease from the normal concerns of everyday life. In light of these considerations, two key questions must be answered: Why should Christians observe the Sabbath and how?
Two other links which come to mind when I consider the topic are given below. What resources, practices, and communities have you found helpful in Sabbath-keeping, particularly as a new term begins?
- A Guided Sabbath, a resource written by Sarah MacDonald & Jay Sivits for Following Christ in 2002
- Critical Junctures: The Spiritual Formation of Graduate Students and Young Faculty by Bob Trube.