The Faith to Rest: Why Sabbath Matters for Leaders

Do you struggle to accomplish everything you need to in 40, 50, or 60 hours a week? Do you constantly try to “catch up” on work during the time you otherwise might be spending with your family or other significant relationships? Does achieving work-life balance seem impossible given your responsibilities?

After years of struggling to catch up and accomplish more, I haven’t given up, but I have mostly given in. I realized that working to practice Sabbath is a step of faith. It takes less faith to be in control and exhausted and believe me, I have tried that route.

The Gift of Sabbath

God’s instructions about Sabbath are clear in Scripture: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. (Exodus 20:8-9)

Discussions about what activities are permissible during a Sabbath rest miss the big picture of God’s gracious provision for us to embrace rest. Releasing our compulsion to work seven days means that we can receive a gift that God wants to give us—Sabbath rest.

Years before I was on staff with The Navigators, I was invited to Glen Eyrie for a retreat with their former President, Lorne Sanny, who was in his 70s at the time. Lorne encouraged us to trust God with our work. He advised us to decide how many hours we would work in a normal week, and then trust God with the results. He reminded us that as Christians we had the Holy Spirit and wisdom from God and that we shouldn’t compete with the world for hours.

Receiving the gift of Sabbath from God is an acknowledgment that He is sovereign and He fulfills His promises. Psalm 127:1-2 reminds us that God is in control, and we can rest in that truth:

Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.

Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for he grants sleep to those he loves.

An alternate translation of the last phrase is “for while they sleep, he provides for those he loves.” We are free to rest because the awesome God who made all things is in control.

Even when we acknowledge the wisdom of God in providing Sabbath, it can be a struggle to live this out in our daily lives and leadership.

Mike Sharrow, CEO of C12 Business Forums, shared about a real-life struggle with Sabbath in the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast several years ago:

“I was driving home from work, preparing to tell my wife why I was not going to be able to take Sabbath day that week and that probably for the next number of months that I was going to need to be in kind of a seven-day-a-week run to keep the business from dying. [During the COVID shutdown.] I remember pulling in the driveway, prepared to tell my wife that, and I felt like I had a conversation with God in the front seat, right in my driveway, where He said, ‘Hey, Mike. You can go and tell your wife that, and I'll be okay. But you're taking the wheel, and you're going to feel the weight of the world. Or you could trust that I can do more with six days in you trusting Me than you can do in seven days not trusting Me. And you're going to miss out on what I would do.’”

Along with deepening our trust in God, embracing Sabbath means reframing our view of productivity. Whether you work in a Christian ministry or are living out your faith in a business, professional, or educational setting, our hustle culture shapes our view of work and productivity.

Alan Fadling is a founding partner of Unhurried Living, Inc. He coaches leaders and organizations, helping them work towards long-term productivity that lasts rather than settling for quick fixes. He offers a fresh way of considering productivity for leaders as he encourages a daily, weekly, and yearly rhythm of time with God:

“We think that productivity is a plus-minus game. So if we take an hour away from our workday, then we're getting an hour less of work done. But productivity doesn't work that way. It's more exponential and multiplication-oriented. When I take an hour away to be with God, that hour changes me, and I'm a different me doing the work I do for the other hours of that day, or that week, or that year.” (Alan Fadling on the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast)

While we don’t always think about working too much in the context of addiction, social scientist Arthur Brooks makes the case for this consideration in his recent book, From Strength to Strength:

“One of the nastiest and most virulent addictions I have seen is workaholism. … Leaders who work crushing hours often tell me they have no choice if they want to do their jobs adequately well. But I don’t buy it. When I dig a little—in my life and the lives of others—I usually find that workaholics are caught in a vicious cycle: They become successful by working more than others—and thus more than “necessary”—but believe they have to keep up that pace to maintain their astronomical productivity. The rewards of that productivity give way to a fear of falling behind as an impetus to keep running. Soon enough, the work crowds out relationships and outside activities. With little else, work is all that is left to the workaholic, reinforcing the cycle. Workaholism feeds fear and loneliness; fear and loneliness feed workaholism.” (Excerpt from chapter 3, From Strength to Strength.)

There is humility in reframing productivity and admitting that achieving success is a fleeting goal that leaves our lives empty. Trusting that God is in control of our work and that He offers us the gift of Sabbath is not only transformational for our lives but also for those we lead in our workplaces. A flourishing workplace offers employees a healthy rhythm of work and rest, to avoid burn-out and foster individual and corporate thriving.

Practical Application

Once you decide that you are going to receive the gift of Sabbath, and trust God with your work, how do you live this out in your day-to-day life?

Here are a few practical steps to get you started in embracing rest and honoring life balance in the workplace:

• Manage your use of technology, rather than letting it drive your work. The ability to work from anywhere at any time is not the root of overwork, but technology does provide additional challenges in creating healthy boundaries. Turn off notifications that are interrupting your time off, or your ability to do focused work.
• Involve your team in setting realistic deadlines. If your team members are always stretched and not able to achieve their goals, create space to listen to their input regarding realistic expectations and resources needed to accomplish the work.
• Model work boundaries in communication practices. Avoid sending emails that require a response during times when your team is not working. For example, you may choose to have a different Sabbath period than others, but you can queue up emails to send later, rather than regularly sending emails after hours, on the weekend, or during someone’s vacation.
• Encourage the use of PTO. Model your trust in God by taking vacation time. Also encourage, and model for your teammates to fully disconnect when they have time off. Make scheduling time away an important part of the regular planning process for your whole team.
• Get creative in implementing Sabbath practices. Consider an accountability partner if you struggle with implementing Sabbath. Include ideas about practicing Sabbath and life balance in your regularly scheduled team time or all-staff meetings. Some workplaces offer a personal retreat day as an employee benefit.

And finally, get ready to experience blessing. For the good God who loved us enough to model a Sabbath rest for us (when he didn’t need it) plans to bless you with the benefits of margin and rest.

Resources

• Best Christian Workplaces’ Employee Engagement Survey provides an assessment of workplace health, including questions related to life balance and Christian character in leaders.
• 3 Reasons Why Leading with Peace Has Greater Impact Than Anxiety: Listen in as Gem and Alan Fadling of Unhurried Living, Inc. discuss issues related to life balance on the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast with Al Lopus.
• Beyond Quitting: 5 Ways Pastors Can Avoid Burnout and Rediscover Joy: This article by Robert Watcher, Best Christian Workplaces Global Marketing Director, is focused on pastors but contains wisdom for all leaders.
• Margin, by Richard A. Swenson M.D. (NavPress) Restoring emotional, physical, financial and time reserves to overloaded lives.