The Sanctification of Free Time

The Sanctified Imagination - Part 8

I am prone to two (seemingly) opposing things.

First, it isn’t hard for me to feel guilty about spending my time on things “for me”. Playing a video game or sitting and reading for a long stretch can both make me feel pangs of guilt afterwards because I could have been using my time “better”.

Secondly, I’m prone to feelings of entitlement when I’ve gone long stretches having done nothing “for me”.

What I’m saying is, I’ve often gotten caught in the trap of “serving others” for long stretches only to feel a sense of “I deserve to just sit here and play a game for an evening”, only to end that time feeling a bit sick to my stomach that I “wasted my time playing a game when I could have been getting things done”.

Yay me.

A More Beautiful Cycle

I’m confident I’m not alone. Many of us struggle with the feeling that we should always be productive while also knowing that there is some level of truth to all that social media junk about self-care. It wasn’t until I was taught the discipline of Sabbath — and understood its place in God’s story for humanity — that I began to see a more healthy cycle form in my life.

Perhaps it is not very profound for you, but God has designed each of us to work and rest in a rhythm. The inability to hustle and work all the time without burnout isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the LORD your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your cattle, or your resident who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; for that reason the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Exodus 20: 8-11 NASB

A regular, fixed, day of rest each week forces your body and mind into a rhythm of rest and trust that seems to work out the kinks in our spirit which form throughout the week.

I once heard Andy Crouch say something to the effect of, “When you practice Sabbath, you are never more than six days away from rest.”

Today, as you read this, are you just trying to hold on to the hope of rest coming around Thanksgiving or Christmas? Are you trying to keep your crap together until retirement?

As I write this, it is Friday. Tonight, as the sun begins to set, my family and I will relax and go into our day of rest. Our Sabbath. We do this every Friday evening, and have for years. Our bodies and minds are trained for it. Our spirits were designed for it.

Tomorrow I’ll wake up and brew a cup of coffee, then I’ll read my Bible and then I’ll just sit and process. My kids will play. My wife will do the same as me, though without the coffee.

We will still have our parenting duties, for that is the season of life we’re in, but our posture will look different. We aren’t trying to get x done by x time. We will move leisurely through the world. Unhurried.

How It Relates

This habit — or better yet, spiritual discipline — molds our hearts and minds in ways that carry over beyond that singular day of rest.

Through God’s tutelage, I’ve begun to sense in my spirit when it is a time to work and when it is a time to rest. I can tell this not only for myself, but often for my family as a whole. My wife and I can usually gauge when we need to double down and work hard, versus when we need to say “no” to work and get some pizza and put on a movie — even though it’s a Tuesday night. We are far less likely to be bound to entitlement or guilt because we are far more likely to by aware of the Spirit’s leading since we’ve chosen to follow along with His more general rhythm of weekly rest.

When engaging in the regular discipline of weekly Sabbath, we are shaping our imaginations to see the world not shaped by our own hands, but by the movement of God and His hands. It humbles us, places in our right posture, and prepares us to work and rest in a proper rhythm.

We are, in part, formed by what we spend our time doing.

And so, when we are intentional about spending our time in the rhythm of rest God designed for us, we are bound to be shaped more like him.

Where We’ve Been

We are currently in our series on the Sanctified Imagination. Our imagination is that place in our minds in which all thoughts, images, and senses dwell (whether from ourselves or elsewhere).

Our imagination is built up of a number of “Building Blocks”, or the things we give our minds so that we can imagine the future and live into that future. A Sanctified Imagination is one that is being fed building blocks of the Kingdom and can imagine (and live into) a Kingdom future.

This article continues our conversation on the second building block, “The Activities We Participate In”.